


No Exit

by tentacledicks



Category: Watch Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Chronic Pain, Disabled Character, Dysfunctional Family, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Lovers to Enemies to Friends, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Rough Sex, Slice of Life, Underage Drinking, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-02-26 01:13:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 68,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18713488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentacledicks/pseuds/tentacledicks
Summary: Aiden Pearce is getting his life back on track—or juston trackdepending on who you ask. He’s got roommates. He’s got a career path planned out. He’s almost (probably) ready to graduate and move on to bigger and better things, things that don’t involve driving drunk coeds for less than minimum wage, and he’s got absolutely no time for distractions.Especially not hot, rich ones that keep popping up where they didn’t need to be.Especiallynot when they’re doing it deliberately just to fuck with him.He’s 99.9% sure it’s just to fuck with him, at least.Maybe 99.8%.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a problem and that problem is stupid ideas that I inevitably take too far.
> 
> Do I have a plot for this? No. Do I have any plan whatsoever? Also no. Do I have a second chapter halfway finished and an unbridled glee at the sort of stupid shit I can get up to in this? _Aha. Aha ha **ha ha.**_

University parties had some of the best drugs if the doped up idiots in one of the game rooms were any indication. It was tempting, but it was a temptation that Aiden had managed to resist—other than the cigarettes and the alcohol, both of which were at least legal, if not legal for _him_ when he’d first started smoking and drinking. He was cautiously hopeful about the legalization efforts for weed, even if the only thing it did for his roommate was make him more obnoxious than usual.

Then again, considering how many wasted twenty-somethings he’d had to dodge over the last hour and a half, maybe that was just a symptom of age. Or lack thereof.

He considered the solo cup in his hand with origins indeterminate. Maybe _he_ was more obnoxious than usual too, come to think of it. The idea that he could be an obnoxious drunk sat uneasy in his gut, pulling his face into a frown as he drifted into one of the rooms blasting loud with music.

There were more people here, crushed together and dancing unlike the drunken, laughing groups in the halls and scattered in the quieter rooms. Aiden skirted the edge of the worst of it, heading right for the alcohol, but a prickle on the back of his neck made him pause. He knew the feeling of being watched—it was half the reason he came to these things, cruising for whatever attractive and desperately horny frat boys would have him—but there was an intensity that was unfamiliar. He downed the rest of his drink before turning, hunting out whoever was watching him.

It wasn’t a guy he recognized, though the red button up tucked into his black slacks said anything from ‘kind of pretentious nerd’ to ‘maitre’d at a high-end restaurant’. There was a thickness to his thighs and a firmness to the arm wrapped around a girl at his side that suggested muscle under the dressed-up exterior, and his eyes were dark and black in the dim lighting of the room. Firm jaw, messy black hair, what was probably a goatee, and _fuck_ but he kept watching Aiden with a hunger that seemed too sexual for how big the crowd around them was.

The mass of partiers shifted, blocking his line of sight. Aiden shifted with it, tossing his cup to the side and navigating around the edge of the room towards where he remembered the guy being. Girl hanging off his arm said he was straight, but the way the guy watched his ass said he wasn’t _that_ straight. Either way, Aiden figured his chances were pretty good.

He wanted to feel those thighs wrapped around his waist, wanted to see those dark eyes all fogged up with want underneath him. Failing that, he _really_ wanted a better look at whatever the guy was packing. Muscle like that, it would be a crying shame if he were just average.

When the crowd parted again, his guy was alone, leaning back against the wall and squinting his thin eyes as he glared into the mass of moving bodies. Whether he’d been abandoned or told his girl to leave, Aiden didn’t know and didn’t care; the only thing that mattered was that he was _alone_ , and he was still clearly hunting for him. The one that got away.

Aiden felt himself grinning as he slid up on the guy’s left side, and he was still grinning when he wrapped an arm around the guy’s waist and leaned in close to say, “Looking for someone?”

He’d been right about the muscle. It tensed into iron underneath him, but his guy ended up turning his head and relaxing instead of throwing the punch that Aiden could feel humming under his skin. This close, he could see the small mole on the guy’s cheek, the slight crinkle at the corner of his eyes as he squinted, the way his pale cheeks flushed as he breathed in and realized who was touching him.

“You could say that,” the guy said, his own arm snaking around Aiden’s side, hand sliding easily into his back pocket. “Hot thing with green eyes. Met anyone who fit the description?”

“Is this the part where I use the ‘got any Irish in you? Would you like to?’ line? Because if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather skip it.” There was a thrill of excitement beating through him to the pulse of the music, adrenaline and lust mixing into a cocktail better than anything he could get in a solo cup.

“Holy shit,” the guy breathed, his teeth bright and white as he grinned in return. “Are all guys this forward, or is this just a you thing?”

“You were checking me out. If I’m reading this wrong, tell me to fuck off, but,” his other hand dragged down the silk of the guy’s button up, smoothing over the thick bulge in his slacks, “Jesus _C_ _hrist_ , did they pour you in the Bad Dragon factory?”

His guy laughed, low and hungry, his hand squeezing Aiden’s ass. He leaned in, beard brushing against Aiden’s stubble, body half turning so that he was in Aiden’s space. “You wanna find somewhere private and get a better look?”

“I saw a bedroom that was available,” Aiden said, though that had been ten minutes ago and there were no promises that it had _stayed_ available. Whatever. They could find a closet or something instead.

And his guy didn’t argue, didn’t even hesitate before dragging him out of the room, hand remaining in the back of Aiden’s jeans as Aiden shifted his grip up around one well-muscled shoulder. The bedroom he’d seen _was_ occupied now, a girl with her tits out and some blonde musclehead that looked like he’d seen the face of god, but the bathroom through it was empty and inviting, absolutely no evidence that it had been puked in yet.

It wasn’t the worst place he’d blown someone. Aiden hauled them both forward when it seemed like his guy might hesitate, kicking the door shut behind them and then twisting out of the grip with a movement slightly too fluid to be natural. From the flummoxed look on the guy’s face, he hadn’t been expecting that—just like he wasn’t expecting Aiden to drop to his knees, fingers already finding the button and zipper on his black slacks.

“So this is definitely just a you thing,” the guy said, hands hovering uncertainty for a half-second before burying themselves in the rough locks of Aiden’s hair. His thumb caught on the edge of the scar on Aiden’s temple but it didn’t linger.

“Oh, this is definitely a me thing,” Aiden agreed, tugging the guy’s pants down and fishing him out of his boxers. Between the silk boxers and the silk shirt and the probably silk pants, he was getting the feeling this guy made more money than he did. “Somebody upstairs loves you. How do you still have blood in your brain?”

“I’m starting to think I don’t anymore. Are you gonna stare at it all day, or—” His words cut off with a harsh gasp as Aiden dragged his tongue up the thick length of the shaft, watching the way his face went slack and eager.

If he couldn’t have the guy underneath him—and evidence pointed towards this being the first time _any_ man had had this guy in any position, which was a nice little feather in Aiden’s cap—having his dick in his mouth was a good second place prize.

“Oh fuck,” the guy whispered, head thunking back against the door. The beat of the music from down the hall vibrated up through Aiden’s knees, rattling the mirror as he wrapped his lips around the head and _sucked_.

His guy got rapidly less intelligible after that, swearing and groaning as his hips jerked, Aiden’s hands firm up under his shirt and pressing him back down. The fingers in his hair were tight enough to hurt, but not hurt so bad that he wasn’t enjoying it—not everyone had the balls to manhandle him the way he liked. But oh, this guy had _balls_. Every time Aiden pulled off him to breathe, his hands were insistent, hips bucking demandingly as his voice lifted in an arrogant, desperate plea.

The things he’d do to this man if he had the time. In the absence of it, Aiden swallowed him down, finally let him buck up into his mouth, moaned pointedly around his cock as it buried itself in his throat.

“Shit, god, _fuck_ ,” the guy swore, pinning Aiden’s head down as he came.

He swallowed, because the other option was choking, and reminded himself to use condoms next time. When the fingers in his hair finally eased up, Aiden pulled off, pressed his cheek into the hot silk twisted around the guy’s thigh, and grinned up at him.

“Any chance for a return of the favor?” he asked, fully expecting to be turned down.

His guy stared down at him, flushed cheeks and dark eyes, then yanked him up and buried a hand down the front of Aiden’s jeans. His mouth was hot and wet when he dragged Aiden into an open-mouthed kiss, uncaring or unaware that his come was still on Aiden’s tongue, and his hand was hard and unforgiving where it jerked him off, dry and tight.

They went their separate ways after Aiden came with an embarrassingly high noise, his guy to whatever frat house or society he actually belonged to, Aiden back to his car to sober up a little before he headed home. There hadn’t been any chance of anything deeper, which was exactly as he liked it—fast, dirty, anonymous, some dude newly bicurious and a generous hand around his dick, no names, no chance of ever seeing each other again.

And all of that, _all of that,_ would have been fine, except that when he walked into his early morning Anatomy lab, his guy was sitting at a table near the front of the class.

* * *

Clara, predictably, found it much funnier than he did.

“Okay, I get it, I’m a sexed up moron. You can stop laughing now,” Aiden said after the third straight minute of choked, muffled laughter. Her hands were caught up over her mouth, the only thing keeping her from howling in the middle of the campus cafe, and the bangles on her wrists jingled in beat with the shaking of her shoulders.

She was a pretty woman, in her own way. The streak of white in her hair was either bleached or natural, and he’d never been able to figure out which it was—if it was bleached, she took care not to let her roots show. The ink on her arms and chest was half-filled in, not quite done, but she had an apprenticeship with a local parlor and it was one of the perks of the job. Today she was actually wearing makeup, but it wasn’t a common thing, which meant she had something she was doing later that called for it.

Or someone, he thought sourly, even if it was hard to hold it against her. Not after his own deeds two nights ago.

“It’s just,” she wheezed, carefully dabbing tears from her eyes without smearing her mascara, “it’s just, only _you_ can end up in these situations, you know that? Only you!”

“I cannot be the only person to run into an inadvisable one-night-stand in class the next morning.” He sighed, taking a long sip of his coffee. It wasn’t like Clara was wrong, though. It seemed like the stupidest situations were the ones he invariably found himself in.

“No, but you’re the only one to have _two_ classes with him,” she said gleefully, reaching across the table to steal a sip of his coffee too.

“They’re gen-eds. Everyone shares gen-eds, right?” This was the furthest thing from the truth, actually—it was his third semester at this college, the closest to a local school as he could figure, but there were enough people attending that he could barely keep track of anyone from day to day.

Clara he’d known because she was in one of his programming classes. Oddballs in those were a dime a dozen, worse than the art students he could see on campus sometimes, but she’d been the only one to spot the small, defiant rainbow on his keychain and come closer because of it. And since she’d kept catching him after class _anyways_ , it seemed inevitable for them to become friends.

There were clubs and shit, he knew that. Organizations. No fraternities, not for a two year college, but a couple that had outreach programs for people who planned to jump to university out of here. Weekly events, including the ones that were about to eat up the quad in an hour, workshops, meetings, movie nights—

Even outside of class, there were places to meet people, was the thing. He _could_ meet people, if he wanted. He just… didn’t want to. Clara was enough of a friend for him, and between her and his roommates, he met his limit of social interaction during the weeks pretty regularly. It was a rare thing for him to retreat into his room for days on end now.

And when he did want to stretch out beyond that tight social circle, Aiden had a good thumb on the pulse of the party scene. It was the only reason why he’d _been_ at the one night before last. He didn’t like going to bars, not really, but parties were a good place to get a quick lay, and usually they didn’t come back to bite him.

Usually.

“Not at all,” Clara said, stealing another sip of his coffee before sighing at the look on his face. “Look. It’s probably not a big deal, Aiden. It’s just funny!”

“Not to _me_ ,” he muttered resentfully, moving his coffee out of her reach.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” she said, knocking her boot against his calf, “Defalt has some kind of thing at that club—the real artsy one? That’s on Thursday. We’ll go there, we’ll get _absolutely_ wasted, I’ll ask him if he can swing it to get the cute bartender on that night, and you’ll get laid with someone who is too old to be in your classes. That’s your type, right?”

“Shut up.”

“Yeah, I thought so. So you’ll get it on with the hot bartender, I’ll get so blitzed I can barely walk the next morning, Defalt will get a couple extra cover charges for his thing, and we’ll all be happy.” She paused, considered the consequences of her course of action. “Well, you and I will probably be hungover, so not happy with that, but otherwise it will be a very fun Thursday.”

After a few more seconds stewing in his own resentment, Aiden gave up. Clara was right—he’d feel better after a night out with a hot guy _who didn’t necessarily have to be older than him_ and that way he’d stop thinking about the guy in two of his gen-eds whose name he didn’t even know.

Fuck. He didn’t even know the guy’s _name_.

“Oh god, I have no idea what his name is,” he said, immediately forgetting his personal resolution to stop thinking about him.

Clara, like a bitch, started laughing at him again. She stole his coffee for good measure, standing up and patting him on the shoulder with mock sympathy. “Don’t worry about it, Aiden. I’m sure he’ll tell you once he figures that out.”

There was a strong likelihood that she was right, but he didn’t want to admit that. He watched her leave, her bag heavy with punk patches and dangling keychains, then shoved out of his chair and headed for the counter of the cafe. Another coffee wouldn’t hurt him, and he had his afternoon class in about fifteen minutes. It would give him time to find a good seat.

He tried not to mull over the problem of his guy on the way there, dodging around a laughing group wearing similar patches to Clara’s. Between JB’s—sorry, _Defalt’s_ —gigs at campus parties and the kid in that mask, he was beginning to wonder what kind of visible face policies the school had. Maybe getting a motorcycle and just wearing his helmet around wouldn’t be a problem.

It was a useful distraction, better than worrying about his mystery man. He’d always wanted a bike, but his mom had vetoed it as his first vehicle and he couldn’t exactly afford the damn thing now. If he put in the extra time driving, maybe but—fuck, did he even really need a bike in the first place? Just because he could, theoretically, have one didn’t mean he _should_ have one.

His apartment complex probably wouldn’t permit him for one, anyways. Not when he already had a car. And their apartment only had two allocated spaces, both of which were taken by now, so begging one of his roommates to pick up a space permit for it was out of the question.

Hard to justify the expense when he couldn’t even make money off of it—mulishly, Aiden grabbed that practicality and shoved it back in the locker where it belonged. He already knew all the things standing between him and his dream bike, he didn’t need to focus on them now. Right now, he was thinking about how cool it would be, how much fun he’d have on it, how fast it would probably go, and how he wouldn’t even get in trouble for wearing a helmet through the building. Sensible Aiden could go take a hike. This was Fun Aiden’s show.

Still focused on arguing with himself, he didn’t look around the classroom as he walked in, just finding the closest seat to the board that also had a wall on one side. Laptop, notebook, pencil, bag on the floor—he had a system, better than he’d ever had in high school, because now that _he_ was paying for it, he wasn’t going to waste this. Even if this was… Intro to Anthropology. Ugh. He sat, rolled his neck, pulled out his phone to text Clara that she owed him coffee, and finally looked up.

Aiden Pearce did not share two classes with the hot guy from the party that he’d given a sexual awakening. That would be ridiculous.

He shared _three_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote/edited most of this while shotgunning the first season of Lucifer, so if there’s any glaring errors you can blame the Devil.

The only one of his roommates around when he finally dragged himself out of bed was Maurice. His girlfriend was probably at work, but Maurice was bumming around on the couch and playing something on the Xbox, yelling at his teammates. The yelling hadn’t woken him up— _that_ was something Aiden had gotten very used to, very quickly. It was the repeated texts vibrating the phone under his head that had finally gotten him up and moving.

Defalt’s set was on at ten, apparently, and he’d be playing until one. Aiden did some quick mental math, how long he could justify staying out versus how wasted he’d be in the morning from alcohol and sleep deprivation both, then texted her back that he’d be there the whole time. This early in the semester, he didn’t have any real work to worry about. Nothing that wasn’t doable over the weekend, at least.

“Yo, Pearce,” Maurice called as Aiden poured cereal into a paper bowl and contemplated whether or not he’d eat it dry or risk the milk, “Abby wants to know if you’re down for this thing on Saturday? Like a… bachelorette party or something.”

“The fuck would I do at a bachelorette party?” he asked, inspecting the milk carton. It was dangerously sludgy in there. Dry cereal, then. One of them would have to pick up milk eventually, but the _responsible_ roommates would probably pick up the slack there.

He and Maurice were not the responsible roommates.

“I dunno, she just figured, you’re gay, you know where the good strip clubs are, right? I mean, it’s like having a Coach bag but better. Gay best friend. Bam.” Maurice give him a lopsided grin, like he’d said something clever. “Probably wants to talk about like… fashion and boys or whatever. Bride’s supposed to be a big fan of that one show?”

Aiden, currently wearing the same boxers he’d thrown on two days ago and nothing else, stared at him. “Maurice, I don’t know anything about fashion.”

“Well, she was just _asking_. I can tell her no, man. No sweat.” With a lazy shrug, Maurice dismissed him again and went back to his game, tugging his headphones up and unmuting himself to yell. The sameness of first person shooters kept Aiden from identifying it at a glance, and he was unsettled enough by the conversation to retreat to his room with his dry cereal instead of sticking around to figure it out.

Christ. Maybe it had been a mistake to fess up after Maurice and Dusan cornered him three weeks ago about never bringing girls back, but it had looked like the only reasonable out at the time. Dusan had given him an inscrutable look and then dropped the subject entirely, which Aiden appreciated. Maurice and his girlfriend, on the other hand…

Well, they weren’t _trying_ to be weird about it. That was a good thing. And she’d stopped trying to get him to date her friends, which was another good thing.

On the other hand, they’d also tried to convince Aiden to revolt with them against Dusan’s control of the master bath, with strong implications that he should try and seduce his straight roommate. Pointing out that Dusan paid the lion’s share of the utilities and extra rent for it didn’t work, and neither did pointing out the rotating selection of pretty coeds that Dusan had been steadily making his way through. They were _convinced_ that they deserved the room, and Aiden deserved it too (???) because he wasn’t a threat to their relationship anymore ( ** _???_** ) or… something.

The day he could afford to live on his own, he was doing that again.

He dragged on a tight black shirt and the darkest pair of jeans he owned, texting Clara where he’d meet her. The paper bowl was dumped in his trash can by the door, keys and wallet in one pocket with his phone shoved in the other. It was still warm enough that he could get away not having a jacket.

“Do you think the Douche will give Abby and me a couple extra days to make rent?” Maurice asked as he headed for the door.

“I think you should have thought about that before sitting him down to argue that you needed the private bathroom,” Aiden said, rolling his eyes as he left.

Okay. As rooming situations went? Not the worst. Not the best he’d ever had either, but not the worst. It beat living out of his car, and it beat the hellish six months he’d spent with the raging alcoholic that was living off a trust fund. Frankly, with Dusan’s job at Blume, he was living in a better place than he could afford on his own. And when he _wanted_ to, Maurice wasn’t half bad at whatever job he put his mind to, with Abigail keeping him afloat while he was out of work.

It was just… annoying, rubbing up against them all the time. Being reminded, constantly, that he was still single. Never really feeling like his space was his own, always feeling like he was just crashing for a couple nights no matter how long he’d been paying rent.

He’d be able to afford his own place, once he had this degree and wasn’t driving for cash. And the single life was fine. Great, even. It wasn’t like he was hurting for casual partners, and the last relationship he’d had was—

Well. The single life was fine, that was all.

On automatic, he did a quick walkaround of the car by the light of the streetlamp, checking everything before climbing in. Clara had finally texted him back, a selfie with herself and Defalt outside of his mask hanging around by the DJ booth, along with a plea for him to get Snapchat. He shot back a refusal, then tossed the phone face down on the passenger seat and started the car.

Unless he was working, his phone wasn’t where he could see it. Little habits. Useful habits. Watching a kid in his graduating class flip his car off the highway had been a very good lesson on why texting in the driver’s seat was a bad idea.

Actually getting into the club wasn’t too hard, though his eyebrows shot up at the cover charge this time. Defalt better fucking appreciate his support, and he’d _better_ have gotten a hot bartender on duty. It wasn’t a huge crowd, because it was a Thursday night in a college area when most people still had shit to do the next morning, but it was a big enough one that he knew Defalt would be preening about it for _weeks_.

Clara was waiting for him at the bar, neon-bright eyeliner and glitter catching the light, a beer already in her hand. There was a sympathetic look on her face, slight apologetic twist to her lips, and he sighed as he glanced down the bar. _Both_ bartenders were very attractive women.

“Something got lost in translation?” he asked dryly, leaning against the bar next to her.

“I think so. I can stop hitting on them, though.” Her smile took that sly edge that said she didn’t even need to anymore, and he sighed again before stealing her beer. Turnabout was fair play.

“You already have their numbers.” It wasn’t a question.

“I already have _one_ number. Julie’s got a fiance, apparently,” she corrected.

“Oh, well, only _one_ number. That’s fine, then.” He rolled his eyes as she laughed and punched him in the arm, leaning into his space as he sipped at _his_ beer. The punch turned into a fond grip on his bicep, her fingers firm against his skin.

“There are still hot guys around here,” she said, tipsy and reassuring, her pale eyes bright as the club lights strobed. “I saw one that was _very_ your type earlier. Red shirt, white suit—I think he’s on the other side of the club?”

Across the dancefloor, then. He wrapped his arm around her, downing the rest of the beer as he squinted across the crowd to the seating. There were a few guys in suits here—this club was close enough to the Mad Mile to grab both the weird artsy types and the people with too much money to blow. Most of those suits were black though, so the white one stood out, its owner’s broad shoulders on display as he leaned over a table to talk to someone in a green backless dress.

“Okay. Sell me on him,” he said, setting his empty glass on the bar. “Criteria have to include something other than ‘has a dick, probably knows how to use it.’”

“Pretty sure it’s a _big_ dick.” Clara tucked her head against his shoulder, running her fingertips over the corded muscle in his forearm. “He’s got a beard—don’t look at me like that, I know you like feeling the scruff. Definitely has some muscle to him, because I watched him heft a guy out of a chair for his friend, didn’t even look like he broke a sweat. He can dance. He’s been checking other guys out, but no bites so far.”

“Are you sure _you_ don’t want to fuck him?” He grinned at the offended noise she made, squeezing her around the waist.

“Don’t be crude. There’s also a bunch of bikers over by the booth but I couldn’t tell if they were into guys and I don’t want to throw you into a fight in the middle of Defalt’s set. You have to wait until later for that.” She finally ducked out from under his arm, lifting a hand to catch a bartender’s attention.

“In that case, I’m going fishing. Wish me luck.” He patted her on the shoulder, waved to the DJ booth even though the bright blue rat mask was turned down and away from him, then began to weave his way through the crowd on the dance floor. Bodies pressed against him as he slid between dancers, eyes locked on the bright white jacket and slacks of his target.

For all the shit he gave her, Clara was good at sussing out guys for him. In return, he kept an eye out for any punk girls with long hair for her—she liked having something to grab, she’d told him once, with a wistfulness for could-have-beens over a butch she’d just broken up with. After a year of rotating through parties and bars together, they had a system going.

Not that she needed _his_ help tonight, apparently. Still, he kept an eye out. Never hurt to have something in his back pocket if Clara actually struck out.

There was something familiar about the man’s face, the hard line of his jaw and the shaggy hang of his hair. It nagged at him as Aiden drew closer, the darkness of the club making it hard to get a good look at his features. He racked his brain for where he could have seen the guy before, gaze locked on his face, and only realized it when his target turned and the mole on his cheek became visible.

Oh fuck. The guy from his classes spotted him, a grin stretching bright and white across his face as he pushed away from the group of well-dressed twentysomethings he’d been chatting with. With the suit jacket on, the muscle in his arms was better hidden, but the folds of his red shirt weren’t enough to hide the broadness of his chest.

He was _still_ stupidly attractive, and Aiden hated him a little for it.

Too late for him to turn away and pretend like he _hadn’t_ been coming straight for him, so Aiden lifted his chin and let a smirk play on his own lips. “Buy me a drink?”

“Anyone ever tell you that your pick-up lines suck? You’ve got no sense of romance,” his guy said, though it didn’t seem to matter much. He was already moving away from his friends, reaching automatically to hook his fingers in the belt loops of Aiden’s jeans.

“Not exactly romance I’m looking for,” Aiden said, letting the guy pull him in before tipping his head towards the bar. “Name’s Aiden. Figured we should get to know each other, now that I’ve had your dick in my mouth.”

It got him a laugh, startled and delighted, and his guy leaned in closer until their lips were almost touching. “Jordi. Let me buy you that drink, huh?”

Jordi. With a first name, he could go hunting in the student rolls for his classes and find a last name too. And now he finally had a name to put to the face that ended up chasing him for half the week—including showing entirely too much interest and enthusiasm for the Anthropology class they’d both had nine hours earlier.

Clara was gone from her spot at the bar when they reached it, but a covert glance towards the booth showed her up on her toes shouting something up to Defalt. Without asking for input, Jordi ordered a cider and an IPA—not something Aiden was particularly keen on, but he wouldn’t object either. Better than something fruity and sweet, because for all that Clara tried to insist that cocktails were great, he’d never had one that agreed with him.

“You blow every guy you meet at a party?” Jordi asked with a dirty smile.

“Only the hot ones,” Aiden shot back, leaning into his space. They were the same height, which was a thrill—he usually stood an inch or two above every guy he hit on, so having someone his size was new and exciting. “You let yourself get blown by any guy who asks at a party?”

Jordi laughed again, his hand sliding up under Aiden’s shirt and resting hot where it curled over the skin of his hip. “Only the hot ones. Gotta admit though, when I decided to slum it, I was _not_ expecting to share classes with you.”

_Slum it_? Aiden’s eyebrows shot up, his opinion on Jordi’s personality taking a sharp nosedive. Sure, he’d noticed the silk clothes and the suit, and sure he’d noticed that Jordi’s sidebag in class was real leather, just like his laptop was a higher-end gaming one, but—slumming it. Really.

“Damn, and you said _I’m_ bad at romance,” he said, making no move to shove Jordi’s hands away. Even though he should. He really, really should. Nothing good would come from fucking the rich asshole having his first gay revelation, but he couldn’t bring himself to pull back and abort mission.

He’d told Clara that he was a sexed up moron as a joke, but there was a hint of truth in it too. For a one night stand? Personality was optional. And Jordi’s body made up for all the places where his brain wasn’t up to snuff.

So he was shallow. Sue him. Jordi’s voice was warm and rough, lighter than his own smoker’s rasp but still deep enough to drag shivers down his spine. His smile was a little sharp, a little predatory, still slightly nervous at the edges but losing all the shyness as Aiden kept reciprocating. “You said you weren’t into romance. So I figure I’ll try honesty instead. What’ll it take to get you to blow me again?”

Not a damn thing. Except—

“I have a better idea. Did you drive here?” Jordi’s brow furrowed slightly, fingers curling around the cider as it slid down the bar. Aiden caught the IPA, took a sip with a predatory smile of his own, and leaned further into Jordi’s space. “Because if you didn’t, I could drive us back to your place, and you could get a hell of a lot more than a blow job.”

He watched the way Jordi’s pupils blew wide, his tongue flicking out to lick foam off the hair on his lip. The slight flush that crept across his cheeks was a perfect copy of the one that had left him red and moaning in a frat house bathroom, every filthy thought in his head painting its way across his face. Had Jordi ever thought about fucking a guy before he’d met Aiden? _Really_ thought about it, not just idly considered it?

Didn’t matter, one way or another. He was thinking about it now, and the rush that gave Aiden was better than any drug.

“Took a cab,” Jordi said, licking his lips again. “I could, uh, give you the address.”

“Well, big guy. Let’s have it.” Aiden pulled his phone out, navigating to his GPS app pointedly before handing it over. He took a longer swig of his beer while Jordi typed his address in, chugging the damn thing fast enough that he couldn’t taste it anymore. Fucking IPAs.

Clara was still by the booth, but she’d been the one to send him off after Jordi in the first place. Not that she’d known he was _the guy_ , but she’d known damn well what Aiden planned to do with him. She wouldn’t miss him. And he’d just make sure to text her with Jordi’s address when he got there.

Jordi handed the phone back as Aiden downed the last of his beer. “This is still a you thing, not a gay guy thing, right?”

“Still a me thing,” he confirmed, raising an eyebrow at the part of town Jordi apparently lived in. Kind of a drive to get to their school. “You should get a hold of that urge to ask, though, because if you ask me while I’m on your dick? I’m leaving.”

“Noted. Don’t ask the hot and aggressive guy stupid questions, he won’t touch your dick anymore if you do.” Jordi pushed off from the bar, half-lifted an arm in invitation like he’d done it a million times for girls smaller than Aiden. Probably had, come to think of it.

Aiden lifted it higher, slung it over his shoulders as he dropped his own hand to squeeze Jordi’s ass. It was firm, muscular, just like the rest of his body. The temptation to rail him into the mattress tonight was high, but god, he didn’t want to deal with the work. Especially walking an anal virgin through the terrifying prospect of _fingering himself_ for the first time.

With a soft snort at his own thoughts, he steered Jordi towards his car.

“This actually really nice, what the fuck?” Jordi said as he sprawled in the passenger seat, white jacket crumpling as he got settled in. “Do you have—how many kinds of gum do you have in here?”

“Three mints, one cinnamon, two fruit flavors. Just in case.” He flipped the car into drive, settled his cellphone on the dash, and pulled out. Jordi’s apartment (condo?) was somewhere closer to downtown, a higher-end area that served young professionals and the university kids. Proper university kids. Rent was at least double or triple what his apartment cost.

“Jesus, you plan ahead. How many guys—?”

“I’m a driver for a living, you dipshit,” Aiden said with a roll of his eyes. His estimation of Jordi’s intelligence went down several more points. Thank god he was pretty.

“Oh. Right, that would make more sense.” Jordi huffed out a soft laugh, dragged his fingers through his hair, then flashed him another grin. “I still bet it was more guys than I’ve fucked, though.”

“You’re not wrong about that. Do women actually go for this shit?” They couldn’t possibly. Clara had a brain, and for all the faults he could find in his family, neither his mother nor his aunts were stupid women. On the other hand, Aiden _was_ going for this shit, so he was probably the stupid one here.

“Nah, I’m not an asshole to _them_. But I figure, you’ve been pretty fucking clear about what you want out of me so far, so…” Jordi’s grin widened, like he had Aiden all figured out.

Well, he _was_ an asshole, but he wasn’t _wrong_.

“Do I need a guest pass to park there?” Aiden asked, instead of letting that line of thought go any further.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. As long as you’re not there for more than a day or two, they won’t give a shit. Parking enforcement around the place is garbage and I own two spots anyways.” Jordi leaned back, turning his head towards the window. His fingers bounced restlessly on his thigh, rubbing against the white silk with nerves or anticipation or both.

Easier to let the conversation stop there and maybe Aiden wanted him to stew a bit too. Not enough to make him back out, but enough that hopefully Jordi would stop shoving his foot in his mouth.

The condo—and it was a condo building that Aiden was pulling into—was better than anything he could ever afford. The guest spots were in front of a gate that blocked the rest of the parking garage off, and Aiden parked in one with a bit of trepidation. If his shit got towed, he was going to steal Jordi’s wallet and make him pay for it.

“Damn. Nice building.” He locked the car twice, just in case, feeling out of place and underdressed for the marble-tiled lobby Jordi walked him through. Art hung on the walls, gorgeously detailed still lifes and abstract messes, and there was a doorman who glanced at him before glancing away again.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” Jordi said, a hint of disdain in his voice. “I wanted something kind of trashy, you know? Like, what a college kid could afford, or whatever.”

Aiden stared at him as the elevator doors shut, trying to figure out if he was _deliberately_ this stupid or if it was a joke. He wasn’t totally sure. It pissed him off either way, the dismissive, casual way Jordi treated the trappings of wealth around him. As if he’d been born under a lucky star, with a silver fucking spoon in his mouth.

The condo itself was worse, dark wood floors and a good view from halfway up the building. All of the furniture looked designer, and if the condo itself was smaller than the apartment he shared with Maurice and Dusan, it was only on a technicality. Once they were in the bedroom, Aiden stripped his shirt off and stepped out of his shoes, glaring at the king-sized bed with envy.

“You fucking suck at slumming it, you know that, right?” he said, yanking open the top drawer of Jordi’s side table. Lo and behold, lube and condoms. It was comforting how predictable other men could be.

“What? No I don’t. This place is a shithole.” Jordi let his clothes fall in heaps on the floor, greedy hands reaching to drag the jeans off Aiden’s hips. “And, no offense, but you’re not exactly a high-class girl.”

“You’re damn right I’m not.” Aiden let himself be dragged closer, bottle in one hand and condom in the other. The muscle he’d been eyeing under Jordi’s clothes was fully on display now, pale skin covered in wiry hair that did nothing to hide the way his abs flexed. Jordi’s cock was already standing at attention, thick and dark, just as enticing as he remembered it being.

“So are you riding me, or do you want to—I mean, every time I’ve done anal with a chick it was doggy style, so give me some pointers here,” Jordi said, his hands squeezing Aiden’s ass with intent.

“God, you are just so lucky that your dick is as big as it is.” He slapped the condom against Jordi’s chest, turning them towards the bed and then shoving him backwards. The other man went with only a token resistance, sprawling across his rumpled sheets with a delighted look on his face. “Put that on so I can ride it already.”

“You already let me come down your throat, does it really matter anymore?” Jordi rolled the condom on anyways, half-sitting up as he watched Aiden dump lube in his hand.

Aiden snorted and didn’t answer, shoving Jordi back again as he climbed into his lap. His lubed up hand wrapped around Jordi’s dick, stroking up slow and lazy as Jordi groaned softly underneath him. His hips twitched, rolled, rocked up into Aiden’s hand as his fingers dug into Aiden’s thighs. The thick muscle in his chest flexed and Jordi groaned again as Aiden finally pulled his hand away.

“You’re fucking killing me here, Aiden.” One hand lifted up, dragged down Aiden’s stomach until Jordi reached his dick and curled his fingers around it. Aiden blew out a shaky breath, pushing his lubed up fingers into himself and leaning forward.

“You could learn to have some patience,” he said, catching himself on a moan as Jordi’s thumb dragged over the slit on his head.

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you. _Twice_ you’ve jumped my bones and—oh _fuck_ ,” Jordi gasped, fingers tightening as Aiden grabbed his cock and guided him in. There was a tight, low burn as he pushed down, Jordi’s cock stretching him open as he rolled his hips and took him deeper.

_God_ , he was big. Aiden leaned forward and grabbed his shoulders, lifting up before driving himself back down again with another soft moan. Jordi’s hand was hot and dry around his dick, the other restless and frantic where it pawed at his thigh. His back arched, hips thrusting up hard as Aiden gasped.

There was that bright flush over Jordi’s cheeks, his gorgeous lips parted as his head tipped back against the sheets. Aiden wanted to fuck his mouth, wanted to kiss him, wanted to burn that image into the back of his brain and keep it in his spank bank forever. Since two of those options weren’t guarantees, he took the third, shifting his hands up to bury them in Jordi’s hair.

Bending himself in half, he kissed Jordi, pushing his tongue between the other man’s eager lips. It got him a groan in response, Jordi’s hands moving to grab his ass and squeezing tight. His mouth tasted like sharp cider and something fruity, his beard catching against the start of Aiden’s stubble as he fucked up with intent.

The hands on his ass shifted, Jordi’s muscles tensing a half second before Aiden realized he was moving, rolling them both over and slamming his back into the bed. He gasped, fingers tightening in Jordi’s hair, then groaned as Jordi braced a hand against the mattress and began to thrust hard and fast. Aiden tightened his legs around Jordi’s chest, dug his heels in the small of his back and let Jordi show him the exact reason Aiden had committed to this bad idea.

Lightning sparked at every point of contact on their bodies, Jordi’s chest pressed against him and Jordi’s lips hot and wet against his own. His cock was a thick drag with each thrust, stomach hard pressure against Aiden’s dick where it was caught up between them, and Jordi’s fingers dug bruises into the meat of his ass. Aiden was suffocating under it, under _Jordi_ , and if he had to die then dying like this was the best possible option.

Jordi broke off the kiss and pressed his forehead to Aiden’s with a soft hiss, his rhythm stuttering as he shifted position and hitched Aiden up a little higher. The change was enough to send pleasure coiling tight through him, building to a fever pitch to match the pace of Jordi’s thrusts.

“Oh _god_ ,” Aiden gasped, grinding his knees into Jordi’s ribs as he came in thick ropes across both of their chests. Jordi swore above him, drove in deep and shuddered as his hips finally stilled.

Jordi’s body was a heavy weight on top of him, his breath hot and damp against Aiden’s cheek. He managed to untangle his fingers from Jordi’s hair, dragging his fingers over the sweaty curve of his shoulders. The muscle flexed under his palms, tensing and relaxing as Jordi finally shifted and started to push up off of him.

“Shit,” Jordi breathed, cheeks flushed and eyes dark as he stared down. “How fucking flexible _are_ you?”

“You have no idea.” Aiden grinned, smeared his hand over cheek just to feel the scrape of stubble against his palm. “Thing you’re into?”

“ _Fuck_ yes.” Jordi leaned in again to kiss him, shifted his hand up to curl his fingers in Aiden’s against the sheets. It didn’t take long for them get tangled together again, lips and tongue and hands, Jordi’s shaggy bangs catching against the skin of his temple.

When they finally broke apart, Aiden thumped a fist against Jordi’s shoulder and said, “Alright off. I want to shower before I leave.”

“Just like that, huh. Cold. But not unwarranted.” Jordi huffed as he pushed himself up again, pulling out this time. He stretched his arms above his head, chest muscles flexing to show where Aiden’s come was caught in the hair, then grinned. “We could shower together. I think I might be bi now?”

“You were staring at my ass _long_ before you got to fuck it. You were always bi.” Aiden sat up, feeling several things pop in his spine. He should just grab his clothes and go, head back to the club and hang out with Clara and Defalt under the music stopped playing. Sticking around would only remind him of how much Jordi’s everything _else_ pissed him off.

But if he showered, he could get on the road and pick up a couple of people tonight. Make up for the cover charge. The buzz under his skin had nothing to do with alcohol anymore, so he was good for it.

“Sure, whatever. So are we showering together? Apparently my water bill is something I’m supposed to care about.” Jordi didn’t wait for an answer, already halfway to the bathroom.

What an asshole. “Yeah, I’m coming.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more tags added, mostly for future events—not all of these will be immediate (the lack of real outline for this leaves me free to move some Future Events around as I will, but the Unplanned Pregnancy tag is definitely not going to be important for at _least_ another 30k words, I think) but I’m probably going to keep updating them as I work out the kinks with where I’m going with this.
> 
> Also join me in yelling @ Ubisoft telepathically to make WD3 have More Girls in it because Clara’s dating prospects are pretty fucking slim right now and she deserves it for the relationship bullshit Aiden’s putting her through.

Saturday morning dawned windy and rainy, a cold front moving through. The pressure in the back of his skull and resting heavy on his wrists was one thing—tolerable after years of learning to deal with it, even if he was never happy about it. The way his ankle tried to fold in one direction while his knee went another was another thing entirely, and Aiden swore softly as he caught himself on the edge of his shitty fiberboard desk to avoid falling.

For a long moment, he stood there and debated with himself. He’d gotten some driving done yesterday morning, and he’d started running food deliveries on Mondays and Wednesdays. It was still practically pennies in the face of all the shit he had to pay for—insurance, rent, groceries, his savings for next semester, the rainy day fund that ended up being his incidentals fund more often than not—but he’d worked this week anyways. And it was possible that the storm would roll through and be done with it by tonight, which was when he’d get the most rides anyways.

On the other hand, it was possible that he wouldn’t be able to pay rent this month. And Abigail might take his presence as agreement to show up to her bachelorette party.

“Fuck. _Fuck_.” With a hiss, he sat back down and yanked open the lowest drawer of his desk, digging out the soft cloth wraps for his wrists and ankles. There was a knee brace shoved in the bottom of the drawer that he pulled out too, tugging it up his right leg and settling it properly to lay flat against his skin. His ankles took priority over his wrists, and it wasn’t cool enough for him to wear a sweater and hide the braces if he did wear them, so he left it alone after shoring up his lower half.

The next time he stood, he didn’t wobble. There was still a dull ache in his joints, but that was just a fact of life when storms came through. Aiden hunted out a pair of pants, dragged them on along with socks and an undershirt, then rubbed a hand over the stubbly edge of his jaw with a grimace.

He shaved in the bathroom, fully dressed, everything tucked neatly under his clothes where it couldn’t draw comment. It was better this way.

Maurice and Abigail were still out cold when he finally made his way into the kitchen, their door shut tight and the living room dark under the threat of clouds. The milk hadn’t been replaced yet, but there was bacon and eggs sitting in the microwave, still warm; Dusan sat at the counter, picking at his own plate while scrolling through emails on his work phone.

“Thanks,” Aiden said, under the assumption that breakfast was for him.

“No problem,” Dusan replied absently. He was already dressed up for work, hair tied in a neat bun and wearing his Blume lanyard. Aiden wasn’t sure when he’d started working weekends, but he had a suspicion that the timing matched up with when the Bathroom Wars had started.

“You need a ride in?” he asked, splitting the eggs open with a fork and shoving them in his mouth. None of his roommates were inspired chefs—neither was Aiden, for that matter—but of them all, Dusan was the one most with his shit together. What would’ve been rubber under Aiden or Abigail’s hands was smooth as silk after Dusan was done with it.

“Sure. Saves me a couple bucks.” Dusan finally put his work phone away, then turned a calculating gaze on the mess of Maurice’s things in the living room. “Should I start charging him more in utilities, do you think?”

“If they keep harping on you about deserving the master, you might as well,” Aiden said, throwing the other two under the bus without a hint of reservation. It wasn’t like _he_ cared about it.

“Heh. Yeah. That’s one way to deal with it.” Dusan’s smirk was quick and nasty, disappearing again once he realized Aiden was still watching. That was the thing about him—he was charming, _more_ than charming, adept at schmoozing his way through situations that Aiden wouldn’t even bother trying to charm his way out of. But all of that came with the vicious, spiteful edge that kept him on the winning side in every bit of politics he deigned to play in.

It made him dangerous enough that Aiden didn’t even try to get in his way. Maurice and Abigail weren’t quite so smart—or maybe just hadn’t seen this side of him yet. Neither of them had any interest in computers, so the one Dusan occasionally vented to was Aiden instead.

The man had a list of grievances a mile long, ranging from the petty to the genuinely justified, and Aiden could probably list out all of them. The current focus of his ire was someone named ‘Holloway’, that may or may not have attended Aiden’s school, and may or may not have been friends with Clara. Aiden wasn’t actually sure about the details. He had no plans on digging deeper either, because _that_ was a mess not unlike the Bathroom Wars, with absolutely no good end possible.

“Let me throw on a shirt and some shoes,” Aiden said once he finished his breakfast, leaving the plate in the sink. Dusan’s was already sitting there, his work phone back in his hands as he went on dealing with whatever fires kept getting set in his department.

“Sounds good. Thought about that yoga thing?” He didn’t bother looking up, and his voice was mild but disinterested. They both already knew what Aiden’s answer would be.

“Not on your life,” he said anyways, just to have it out there. Maurice’s door was still closed as he headed back for his keys, stuffing his feet into his shoes and pulling his last clean shirt on. If they didn’t wake up soon, Abigail might be late for work. Not his problem, Aiden reminded himself as he headed for the door. He had enough on his plate without worrying about his roommates’ shit too.

Still. He paused long enough to rap his knuckles against it, heard an answering groan of complaint from inside.

It would do. Dusan was already outside, waiting by his car. Aiden unlocked it for him, slid into the driver’s seat and propped his cellphone in its holder on his dashboard, ignored the unhappy twinge in his ankle as he pushed the car into gear and slowly pulled out of the parking lot. Once Dusan was at work, he could go on shift and start picking up other passengers. No reason not to work, now that he was up.

* * *

Jordi was waiting for him outside of class.

For a long, blissful second, Aiden pictured just turning and walking away from him, his smug little smile and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he thought he was being clever. If he just _walked away_ there wasn’t anything Jordi could do to stop him, not without looking like a desperate idiot. After two classes of Jordi being effortlessly good at fucking _everything_ , Aiden was very tempted to make him look like a desperate idiot.

But, much to his dismay, they’d been assigned as partners for the paper due in their Anatomy class at the end of the semester. Which meant if he turned and walked away, Jordi would have an excuse to call him a bad partner, maybe even affect his teamwork grade on it at the end of the semester. Aiden had no illusions about his ability to pass the damn class—he’d need all the help he could get. Which included Jordi’s good will.

Fuck.

“I’m going to grab lunch before I start work, are you coming?” he asked before Jordi could open his stupid, arrogant mouth. There was a look of faint offense in his eyes, like he hadn’t expected Aiden to stand up to him enough to make the offer before _he_ could come up with something, but he fell into step without complaint.

Mostly without complaint, at least. “You’re not eating in that shithole of a dining hall, are you?”

“It’s overpriced,” Aiden said, which wasn’t the same as ‘no’. But he didn’t want to spend the extra cash just to piss on Jordi’s parade, so he headed for the parking lots instead, pulling his pack of cigarettes out as soon as they were ten feet away from the last NO SMOKING sign.

“It’s more than that, it’s a _shithole_. Where are we going? I have a car, you know. You don’t have to drive me—in fact, don’t even bother to offer. I know a better place than wherever you were thinking.” Jordi’s rapid-fire monologue chased him out to the backlot he’d parked in, his sedan sitting nondescript and casual next to a two-door little speedster that made Aiden green with envy. “Oh, good, you parked next to me. Makes this easier.”

_Fucker_.

Was it worth it to argue with him about where they ended up? Probably not. Did Aiden want to argue with him anyways? Almost as much as he wanted to pin Jordi’s stupid face down and kiss him until he stopped talking. He wasn’t sure when or where his ‘lust’ and ‘anger’ wires had been crossed, but Jordi managed to light both of them simultaneously in ways that left Aiden pissed off and horny _because_ he was pissed off.

“Wherever we’re going, you’re paying,” he said, instead of the dozen dumber things passing through his head. “I usually pick up a dollar meal or something, so if you’re going fancier than that, I’m not covering it.”

“Deal,” Jordi said, too fast to be anything but insulting. Aiden let it slide, taking a long drag on his cigarette in lieu of anything better to do.

While Jordi poked at his phone and muttered—probably for an address, which Aiden wouldn’t object to—he let his gaze trail idly over the rest of the parking lot. Most of the other people coming out here were heading home for the day, though a few looked like they were just trading off for whatever they needed for their next classes. He got to watch a few prospective art kids struggle with the massive easels they were required to lug around, and it made him smile as he finally stubbed his cigarette out and turned towards the increasingly frustrated mutters.

“Where are we going?” he asked, feeling far too much pleasure at the noise of annoyance Jordi made.

“Ugh, fuck it. You like Vietnamese? Of course you like Vietnamese. Everyone does. And if they don’t they’re lying, full of shit, or racist. We’re doing Vietnamese.” Jordi twisted around, holding his phone out with the address on the screen.

“This would be easier if we had each other’s numbers,” Aiden muttered without thinking as he typed it into his GPS.

“You’re so right. Give me your phone real quick.” Before he could react to that frankly absurd demand, Jordi plucked the phone from his hands, juggling both of them carefully as he texted himself.

Aiden glared at him and snatched his phone back as soon as he could. In his contacts, Jordi had listed himself with a winking emoji and an eggplant. Out of spite, Aiden decided not to change it—if Jordi wanted his whole person to be reduced down to his dick, then _he_ wasn’t going to object. “You’re like a fucking five year old sometimes.”

“Yeah, whatever. C’mon, let’s do Vietnamese and pick an organ to write about.” With a flash of a grin, Jordi swung around to climb into his car, leaving Aiden standing there disgruntled and alone. He even had the balls to wave as he pulled out of the lot and sped off in his stupid, sexy, fast little car. 

God, he could use another cigarette. But since his strict ‘no smoking in the car’ rule held strong, it would have wait until they got to wherever they were going.

The trip was thankfully fairly short, and he only had to disagree with his GPS twice—dumb thing pretended to know the traffic around here better than he did, but after years of driving in this city, Aiden knew its heartbeat better than his own. Lunchtime was its own particular beast.

He parked on the street outside the restaurant, a few spots back from Jordi’s coupe, locking his car up as he paid the meter up. It was a little hole in the wall, tucked away, which only served to say good things about it. In his experience, the hole in the wall joints were the best—usually cheap too. He might even be able to afford to eat here on his own.

Jordi was already seated at a table, frowning over the menu thoughtfully as he dragged a thumb down the offerings. It was two pages, back to front. Laminated. Vietnamese pronunciations listed to the side. Aiden scooped his own menu up as he sat down, trying to see if there was anything appealing.

Most of it was shit he’d never heard of, but all of it looked good enough to try at least once. He leaned back in his chair, inadvertently rubbing his leg against Jordi’s. The contact was a bright spot of electricity, unwanted and enjoyable all the same.

He sat up straight before Jordi could comment, but the smile on his face was comment enough. Aiden scowled at him to make a point, then shook his head and said, “So, you’ve got more of a grasp on this shit than I do, which do _you_ think will be easiest to write about?”

“I think we should have sex again,” Jordi said, proving that he was actually the dumbest motherfucker alive, no matter what his grades might say.

“The _paper_ , Jordi.” He kicked Jordi deliberately this time. “Focus on the fucking paper. I hate to say this, but I actually need your help here. Biology’s not my strong point, and memorizing all these _names—_ ”

“Alright, alright, jeez. I’m just saying, it was fun. I haven’t found any other guys like you, y’know, not all… twinky and shit. That’s the right word for it, right? Twink?” Jordi flashed him a grin, smug enough that Aiden wanted to reach across the table and throttle him, then turned towards the waitress who approached the table. “Iced coffee and a water for me, and the bun tom nuong xa.”

She smiled at him with the warmth of familiarity, then turned that smile on Aiden. Since he hadn’t actually been reading the menu—Jordi was like a fucking lodestone for his attention—he scrambled for the first thing that looked edible. “Uh—water and the banh mi ga.”

“We’ll have that right out for you,” she said, spinning on her heel and leaving with another smile for Jordi. The hint of warmth was a little warmer than it had been before she talked to Aiden, and he wasn’t sure if he was reading into things or if it was actually… that.

God, what the fuck was his life these days.

“What do you mean by twinky?” he asked, because the entire concept of project planning was derailed _anyways_.

“You know, all like skinny and girly and shit. Not that I mind skinny and girly, but only when it’s, y’know, girls. Guys, wasn’t sure I was that keen on them, but then _you_ come along with all those muscles and shit and like—I wanna get a feel for that. Not girly men.” Jordi flashed him another one of those smug grins, though he had the self-awareness to let a hint of embarrassment show at the edges.

“Girly men,” Aiden repeated back to him flatly.

Jordi’s grin faltered, dropped. “Yeah, okay, fair point. Not one of my finest moments. The _point_ is, I wanna, y’know, fuck again.”

And—god, there were so many reasons why that was a bad idea. Jordi was in three of his classes, so when it went bad (and it would go bad, Aiden was sure of that) he’d have to see the stupid fucker for half his week. The fact that he still wanted to jump his bones even with that in mind, that was another reason. Aiden couldn’t trust himself with that kind of temptation, not even for a second. They came from radically different backgrounds, Jordi had already told him he was slumming it, Aiden spent most of his time wanting to choke out his bad opinions, Clara would laugh at him for _weeks_ , the last time he’d had sex with someone more than twice it had been Damien and look at how _that_ had ended—

“I don’t do relationships,” Aiden said. “Seriously.”

Jordi beamed, flinging his hands up like he’d won a prize. “That’s perfect! Neither do I. Never had the time, never had the interest. Sounds like we’d get on perfectly.”

“And you’re going to have to learn how to take a dick, because if we’re fucking, I’m fucking _you_ at some point.” He leaned back, let their waitress set glasses in front of them.

Jordi’s face was thoughtful and slightly distant, brow furrowed as he considered that. Clearly he hadn’t, before now. “You know what? That’s a valid point. I gotta learn how to blow you too, huh?”

He couldn’t help choking on a laugh at that, rubbing a hand over his mouth to try and wipe away the grin before Jordi could see it. This was a stupid idea for so many reasons, more than Aiden could truly count but… he couldn’t deny that it would be nice to have someone steady to rely on for sex. He wasn’t Dusan, or Clara, couldn’t walk into a club and expect to walk out with a girl on his arm every time he did.

It didn’t have to be serious. It wouldn’t be serious. It would just be him, having sex with the hot guy he hated whenever he _wasn’t_ having sex with him, and it would be fine. No strings attached. Easy fun.

“Sure, I’ll have sex with you again. Now if I could redirect you to the _paper_ , Jordi?” Aiden pulled his phone out, opening up the app for his school’s online portal. The syllabus was uploaded on it somewhere, so they could review the requirements before committing to a course of action.

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Everyone’s going to be doing shit like the heart and lungs, right? Let’s do something exciting. Kidneys are exciting.” Jordi sipped at his coffee, head tipped like a hawk examining its prey.

“Are kidneys _easy_?” Aiden asked doubtfully, scanning over the term paper requirements. Eight pages? That was a lot of writing to do, more than his English Comp class was asking for. Maybe they could stretch it out more with diagrams or something.

“Well, they’re not going to be _boring_. You don’t want easy anyways, not if we’re going to be passing the minimum page count. Spoiler alert Aiden: you _always_ want to pass the minimum page count.” Jordi smirked, all embarrassment and hesitance gone. “Bet this is the first big paper you’ve had to write, huh?”

He grunted, because admitting that it _was_ opened him up for more mockery. So he’d taken a bunch of his degree-specific classes first, sure, but that didn’t mean anything. Not really. What anatomy class got off with expecting lab reports _and_ a term paper at the end? “If you think we can do kidneys, then fine. When do you want to meet up and work on it? Mondays, Wednesdays, weekends, and Fridays are all no-gos for me.”

“Damn, you are giving me a tight schedule to work with here. Almost as tight as your—and the food’s here, lean back.” On that charming note, Jordi turned his attention away, giving the waitress a too-warm smile of his own as she set his bowl in front of him. It looked delicious, fresh and visibly steaming still.

Aiden’s pick was just a sandwich, albeit an absolutely gorgeous one. He thanked the waitress as she set it down, getting a hint of that warmth from her in return, then sighed once she was out of earshot. “I know, but I have to work and weekends are some of my peak times around here.”

“Why do you do the driving thing for cash anyways? Couldn’t you, I dunno, strip or something for money instead? I read in the paper that your wages are shit when you do the ridesharing thing.”

There were a dozen reasons why. Because he hated being a front-facing customer service person, and even if he wasn’t gregarious, just being polite was usually all his riders wanted. Because the fucking politics of the grocery store he’d done a stint in at fifteen had been hell, and he’d vowed to never get involved in that again. Because the idea of being on his feet for eight hours a day made his ankles scream in sympathetic pain. Because even if he could power through the pain, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t get fired the first time he showed up in braces. Because a schedule set by other people was impossible for him to work with. Because the idea of being trapped in one place was agonizing. Because he couldn’t ever trust anyone to keep his job stable and secure, so at least if he was driving for a shitty rideshare startup, the only person he _really_ had to rely on was himself.

“Because I like driving more than I like stripping,” Aiden said, taking a massive bite of his sandwich so he didn’t have to say anything more.

“You’d make a _really_ good stripper though, I’m just saying. Or pole dancing, fucking, that thing you did with your _leg_ last week…” Jordi sighed dreamily, swirling his iced coffee to keep it from separating. “Hey, after this, do you wanna go back to my place? I mean, I know, I know, you want to _work_ and whatever, but you can totally work after we have sex. Won’t be an hour out of your way.”

“You know people don’t usually advertise based on speed, right?” He snorted, took another bite, then shook his head in defeat. The responsible option was paying for his lunch and then leaving. The _fun_ option was going back to Jordi’s place for a bit and then picking up rides from around there. Someone was bound to want groceries or a burger or a ride out for both.

“Yeah, well, we can take our time—let’s say Thursday night? Thursday feels lucky to me now. I’m feeling Thursday. And we can set up all our research for baby’s very first term paper.” From the smug smile on Jordi’s face, he already knew what Aiden’s answer would be.

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” Aiden informed him. If they started the research early, he could get most of the term paper stuff out of the way long before he had to worry about the papers due in his other classes. So meeting Jordi sooner was _efficient_ , not just fun. And he’d keep telling himself that until it started to feel true.

He was good at that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aiden’s going to have friends whether he wants them or not. I’m not 100% pleased with this? But it’s finished which means I can barrel ahead to the next couple chapters I want to post which dig a little more into why Aiden is so... _like this_ so little victories.

“You _didn’t_ ,” Clara gasped, scandalized. The sound of it drew the attention of a few people as they passed through the quad, but that attention quickly dropped once they realized nothing more was coming.

“I did.” Aiden shrugged, rubbing his knuckles against his cheek as he ducked into the shade of an overhang. “In my defense, you _literally_ pointed me right at him. The only thing missing was a bow.”

“Well, I didn’t know what he looked like! But—no, you are _not_ doing a regular thing with Mystery Man now, are you? _You_? You _never_ sleep with the same person twice!” She backed into the library, dropping her voice to a soft hiss as they passed into the empty lobby and headed for the stairs. “There was that boy, Michael? You said he was sweet! You said you couldn’t have sex with him again because you never do!”

“Okay, Michael was _different_ ,” Aiden said, taking the steps two at a time. Clara’s legs were shorter, but since she was powered by outrage, she kept pace easily.

“How? How was he different from this guy?” They paused on the landing as a group of three came out of the door, waiting for them to pass before they started up the next flight of stairs. Maybe the elevator would’ve been faster, but Aiden liked the exercise.

“Well, for one? He was actually nice. Jordi’s a fucking dick. And for two, Michael wanted to _date_ me, he thought we had a—a connection, or something. I don’t _do_ romance, you know that.” Aiden caught the door at the top of the stairs as it opened, swinging out of the way of a nerd with headphones on. He kept it open for Clara, following close on her heels as she lead him towards the study rooms.

“That’s so— _honestly_ , Aiden, you are a disaster. What am I going to do with you? Did you at least get him out of your system, now that you’ve broken your two-times rule?” With a huff of exasperation, she squinted at the numbers next to the doors, occasionally peeking into the rooms beyond.

“Uh,” he said, stalling out as he hunted for an answer to that. There weren’t any good ones.

Clara rolled her eyes at him and shook her head. “Oh, you are a _mess_. We’ll talk about this later. Everyone in DedSec has been dying to meet you, you know.”

“You still haven’t explained that. Why are they interested in meeting _me_?”

“Because you’re funny, I’ve mentioned you before, you’re in the IT track like the rest of us, and they know you won’t be shitty about the queer thing. I vouched for you, you know. I vouched for Defalt too, but everyone already knew he was a bit of a dick.” She let out a triumphant noise as she found the door she was looking for, then spun and pointed at him. “ _Don’t_ be a dick. Not in the first ten minutes. You can be a fun guy when you want to be, Aiden.”

“I’m always a fun guy,” he muttered, against all proof to the contrary. She just rolled her eyes at him again before opening the door, voice lifting in greeting to the group waiting inside.

Defalt was there, his hair shockingly blue in the absence of his mask. The rest of the group he recognized more on sight than by name—the kid that always wore the mask and looked like he’d robbed a Hot Topic ten minutes earlier, the guy in the green hoodie that seemed way too smart to be in Aiden’s Friday class, mask-kid’s buddy who was always attached at his hip. He was pretty sure the girl with the skull socks was one of the art students, and he _knew_ the one repping the bisexual flag colors in her hair was one because he’d seen her lugging those easels around more than once. A guy with dreads he’d never seen before, a brunette in glasses who could’ve been anyone he’d seen in the quad, and with Clara and himself, the study room was almost too small to hold them all comfortably.

“Aiden, this is DedSec. Guys, this is Aiden—he’s stupid, but he’s mine.” Clara punched him in the shoulder until he kicked her ankle and lifted a hand in silent greeting.

“Hey man,” said mask-kid’s friend with an open, easy smile. He swung off the desk he was perched on, holding out one hand to shake. “Retr0, but you can call me Marcus.”

Alarm bells went off in the back of his head as he took Marcus’s hand in a quick shake. “Holloway?”

“Yeah! How’d you know?” He had the kind of face that could charm the heart out of the most bitter person in the world and Aiden envied him for it. Probably better for that power to belong to someone else, though.

“I think my roommate has a hateboner for you,” he said, before yelping when Clara socked him in the arm again. “What? It’s true, Clara, you know how Dusan is.”

“Oh, _him_ ,” Marcus said with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, I know the guy. Don’t worry though, we won’t hold it against you. _Everyone_ gets a shitty roommate at least once. Here, lemme introduce you.”

Mask-kid was Wrench-just-Wrench (not unlike Defalt that way), while the two art students were Sitara and Kat. The brunette was nicknamed Snick, short for Snickerdoodle-don’t-ask, dreads was named Horatio and actually a DJ too, and—

“This is Hawt Sauce, also known as the guy who pulled _the_ Frat House Hack, our boy who’s gonna get a full ride to MIT, the myth, the legend, _Josh Sauchak_ ,” Marcus declared, pitching his voice to a perfect announcer’s tone. If the programming thing didn’t work out, the guy definitely had a career in acting. “Don’t worry if he doesn’t do the handshake thing, it’s not just you.”

“So… what do you guys do here, anyways?” Aiden asked, offering Josh a quick smile before casting his gaze across the rest of the study room. It wasn’t how he’d expected to spend his break, but it wasn’t the worst way to waste time.

“Mostly? We shoot the shit and get drunk while playing games,” Wrench said, mask flashing over to a cheerful expression.

“We’re _supposed_ to be pushing back against Blume’s control of the tech sector and the ways they’re encroaching on our daily lives, but,” Horatio shrugged a little ruefully, slinging an arm over Kat’s shoulders, “it’s slow going. We’ve done a couple protests with other people around the city, participated in some information-based hacks—nothing damaging, no releasing anyone’s private shit, just getting the dirt on Blume—but we’re kind of leashed right now.”

“Fucking Council of Daves,” Defalt muttered, sprawled out in a chair and playing some game on his phone. He’d clearly lost interest in the introductions about as soon as Aiden had walked through the door.

“We don’t even know if they’re real, but the moderators in the main IRC and some of our locked forums claim they do, and that keeps us from getting too crazy,” Horatio said with a sigh.

“Still, even without the activist stuff, we hang out!” Wrench clapped his hands together and leaned in, the expression on his mask turning intent. “And on that note: do you, Aiden, accept the party mission I’m about to give you?”

“Shouldn’t I get to hear the mission before I accept it?” he asked, unable to stop himself from smiling anyways. They were a weird group, but he could see now why Clara liked them.

“Well that just sucks the fun out, doesn’t it?” Wrench’s head tipped, reminding Aiden uncannily of Jordi at lunch yesterday. “We need someone to _acquire_ alcohol for the occasion—the occasion being a drunk Munchkin party we’re doing Friday night—and since ‘Ratio’s gonna be working that night, it makes you and Clara for the only ones with cars.”

“And, uh, we ain’t doing the ‘carting twelve paper bags of booze on the L’ thing again. I still have nightmares from the last time.” Marcus thumped Wrench on the back, getting a flicker of hearts in response. “This one can’t be trusted to have good taste anyways. You good for it?”

He’d told Jordi that Friday nights were his best working nights, and he’d ben honest with that. On the other hand, this wasn’t just a meet-and-greet with Clara’s friends, this was an overture to bring him into their group too. Not that Aiden had much interest in hacktivism, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that having DedSec at his back could be really useful. If nothing else, it’d give him a couple extra couches to crash on if necessary.

“If you guys chuck cash in a pot for me, I can get the booze,” Aiden said, coming to a decision. “I can’t afford to grab more than a couple of beers, but if everyone chips in, I know a place that does some mead and shit too.”

“You know a mead guy?” Sitara asked, head snapping up as her gaze sharpened in consideration.

“I know a mead guy.” He smiled as Kat high-fived Snick in the corner of his vision. “Couple other fancy liquors too.”

“It’d be fucking wasted on these losers,” she said absently, but her eyes were narrowed in consideration.

“Yeah, well, fuck _them_ , if he can get his hands on fun stuff to play with, _I_ wanna make some new cocktails.” Kat leaned forward, clapped a hand on his shoulder and grinned wide. “Get me something floral, big guy. We’re gonna get fucked up on Friday.”

* * *

 He spent most of Thursday afternoon bent over Jordi’s coffee table

They didn’t learn a lot about kidneys.

* * *

Abigail was yelling at Maurice when he got home from his Friday night class. He didn’t recognize the sound until he’d opened the door, and then it was too late—both of them spotted him before he could slink away. Her mouth shut with a click, something black and angry on her face before she smoothed her expression out, and Maurice sagged in relief.

“I’m not staying,” Aiden said, edging around the living room and heading for his bedroom. “Got a thing. Might not be back until early in the morning.”

“Yeah, sure,” Maurice said, leaning back into the couch. “You, uh, have fun, man. Get crazy.”

“We’ll try and keep it down in the morning for you,” Abigail said, trying to be polite through the tight anger in her voice. He appreciated that she was making the effort, even if he’d figured he’d be in the doghouse over the bachlorette party thing. Maybe she was just too mad at Maurice to pay attention to him.

Gift horses and all. Aiden dumped off his school bag and grabbed a jacket, wrapping his left wrist tight before hiding the brace under the leather sleeve.

He left as quickly as he could, escaping the tight tension in the apartment by the skin of his teeth. It left him rattled, following him down the stairs and to his car. For a couple minutes, he smoked outside while leaning against the driver’s side door and smoothing out the rough edges of his anxiety, letting the nicotine dampen the throb of pain rocking up through his left arm.

It would be nice to cut back and drink for the night, drown the complaints of his body in alcohol. The fact that he was doing it in company, as opposed to alone in his bedroom, helped. Hard to call himself an alcoholic when it was _social_.

He dropped the butt of his cigarette, grinding it into the pavement with his heel, then climbed in the car. Booze run first, then to the address Clara had texted him. There was a little over a hundred dollars in his wallet, handed over by Josh a few hours earlier. Depending on if the mead place had a sale going, he might be able to pick up some of the fancier liqueurs too.

It wasn’t as busy as it could have been on a Friday night, but the parking lot was almost three-quarters full. He parked as close as he could to the doors, heading inside and ducking around the off duty bartenders and meticulously groomed hipsters as he headed back towards the wall of mead. They had a variety of craft beers as well, a pick-your-own kind of system that he was tempted by for a second, but he had a mission and he was damn well going to carry it out.

His luck held. There were sales on the not only the mead, but also an elderflower liqueur with a fancy label and some regular Jack Daniels honey-whiskey. Tempting as it was to just pocket the rest of the cash, he went hunting for anything that seemed like it might go well with the bunch—Kat had asked for floral whatevers, right?

A rose liqueur was probably different from a rosé wine, but he couldn’t tell how. The higher alcohol content decided him in favor of the liqueur, along with a violet liqueur in a similar bottle.

It occurred to him, as he was pulling out his ID and getting a raised eyebrow at how few months it had been since his twenty-first birthday, that _he_ was probably the hipster fuck now. He hadn’t even hesitated before grabbing the elderflower liqueur instead of something… normal.

Fuck. Clara was going to make him try a fancy cocktail tonight, wasn’t she.

He piled the booze in his backseat, making sure all the bottles were packed in so they wouldn’t crack, then texted her in accusation. The laughing emoji he got in response wasn’t comforting, but it did make him smile as he climbed in the driver’s seat and pulled out of the parking lot. The address she’d listed was a townhouse about a half hour away from their school, accounting for traffic, in a decent neighborhood.

Clara’s car was the only one parked in the driveway, which left him just enough room to squeeze in next to her. He swung himself through the tiny gap between them and headed for the front door—he could carry the alcohol to his car, sure, but his left wrist was acting up again. There would be ample bodies inside willing to move bottles for the privilege of drinking them.

The door swung open on the second knock, Sitara’s face flushed and grinning as she leaned against the frame. “Perfect, you made it just in time. Josh should be here in ten. You have the mead?”

“I’ve got more than just mead, but I’m recruiting help in hauling it all in,” he said, stepping out of the way of the Marcus-Wrench stampede as the two of them wrestled their way out the door. Kat followed at their heels, her eyes gleaming with avarice.

“Come on in, get familiar with the floorplan before you get too trashed to navigate it,” Sitara said, waving for him to follow as she turned back into the house. Aiden glanced back to confirm that all the liquor had been unloaded from his car before locking it, then left the door hanging open and went inside.

It was a neatly decorated house, mostly modern build-by-numbers furniture and white walls. The personality came in through the paintings hung on every inch of white walls, graffiti and abstract landscapes and portraits splattered over with paint like blood. They all blended together at first, but he caught some running themes after examining them closer—the graffiti and some portraits tended to use comic book themes and pops of graphic art, while the landscapes and _other_ portraits were more grounded, more real, more uncanny for the realism used in contrast to the bold, simple shapes and designs that cut across them.

He glanced at the cut open design on Sitara’s sweater, the hint of zombie movie theming on the screen printing, and made a wild guess about which paintings belonged to her and which ones belonged to someone else. Maybe Kat?

“How many of you does it take to cover the rent on this place?” he asked as he followed her through the kitchen into the game room, where the rest of DedSec was scattered around a massive table. It was the only piece of real furniture in the house so far.

“I actually own the place,” Sitara said, twisting to give him a self-deprecating smile. “Trust fund kid. Kat and Horatio live here though, and sometimes Wrench crashes on the couch. If Josh weren’t planning on leaving next summer, he’d have a room too.”

“No shit?” Christ. At least Sitara was pretty chill compared to Jordi, but it was _weird_ having two obviously wealthy people attending the local two-year college.

“Yeah, my parents tried to bribe me into going to Harvard. I bought this place instead.” She knocked on the table, grabbing everyone else’s attention. “Aiden’s officially completely his first mission! We calling him a member now?”

“Hell yeah!” called Wrench from behind them both, hefting two sixpacks of mead onto the table.

“It’s settled then,” Sitara said, satisfied. “Welcome to DedSec, Aiden. You can grab a link to the chat server after Josh gets here. Our chapter has its own so that the Council of Daves can’t harsh our vibe.”

Snick mouthed to herself as she counted the number of people in the room, then said, “Okay, now for something _way_ more important—I think we have too many for Munchkin. All in favor of playing Cards Against Humanity instead?”

“Cards Against Humanity is something I actually know how to play,” Aiden said, grabbing the back of a chair next to Clara and settling down in it, “so it has my vote.”

“Cards Against Humanity,” said Defalt on Clara’s other side, finally putting his phone away and reaching for a bottle of mead. Since he _knew_ Defalt was underage, Aiden had a pretty good feeling he also knew the real reason he was here.

“Munchkin, Kat’s going to be mixing drinks anyways,” said Clara, getting an affirmative noise from Kat in the kitchen.

“Abstaining.” Marcus flopped in a chair across from Aiden, leaning back so Wrench could sprawl in his lap like a pile of broken twigs, the honey-whiskey bottle firmly in hand.

“Dude, don’t play Switzerland! Cards Against Humanity, let’s get fucking _weird_!” Carets flashed across his mask a half second before he shoved it up to drink directly from the bottle.

The entire table exploded in outrage, leading to a hectic few minutes trying to wrestle the whiskey away from Wrench before he could drink from it again. At the end of it, Clara was standing triumphant with the bottle and Aiden was laughing so hard he could barely breathe.

“So I think that settles it,” wheezed Snick, adjusting her glasses. “Cards Against Humanity it is, and next time you guys wanna wrestle, can you tell me so I can put contacts in?”

“My bad,” said Marcus amiably, one arm firmly around Wrench’s middle to prevent him from chasing Clara into the kitchen. From the hearts on Wrench’s mask, he wasn’t too upset by this turn of events.

Kat finally poked her head into the game room, a bottle of mead in hand. “Hey, wait, before you start—drink orders, guys! I get to actually play with the fun stuff this time, tell me how fucked up you want to be! We’ve got some vodka and tequila too, if whiskey isn’t your thing.”

As everyone chorused what they wanted and Snick dug out the CAH cards, Aiden leaned back in his chair and rubbed his wrist under the table. He was glad he’d come—glad Clara had bothered to extend the invitation to her friend group. The last time he’d been seated at a table like this, surrounded by the boisterous yelling of people so close they didn’t worry about being polite anymore, had been his old hockey team as a kid.

He’d missed this, he realized. It was easy when he was alone to pretend like that was how he wanted to be, but in the face of a group of people that actually _wanted_ him around—he’d missed this.

From the way Clara smiled fondly at him from the kitchen doorway, she knew.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were some weird formatting issues with the italics I noticed only after posting—the preview didn’t show them? And I’m not seeing them in the posting interface after I c/p over from gdocs. Whether it’s a compatibility issue from the rich text transferring over to AO3 or something to do with the fact I’m posting all of these chapters from an iPad, I can’t tell.
> 
> Maybe it’ll happen this time, maybe it won’t! What an exciting adventure we’re all on together with this.
> 
> Finally getting to hint at some of the Shit That Went Down and made Aiden the fucking disaster he is. On the bright side: he never joined organized crime! On the down side: everything else.

In the cool, misty grey of morning, he sat down on the front step next to Abigail. Her shoulders were tightly hunched under the soft cotton robe she wore when she was bumming around the apartment, menthol cigarette held tight between her fine-boned fingers. She offered a light before he could dig his own lighter out, and he leaned in close.

“Why do you stay with him?” he asked after a couple minutes of mutual silence, gaze fixed on the cracked sidewalk across the street. “Your name isn’t on the lease. And Maurice is… well. You know how he is.”

“Yeah, I do.” Abigail sighed and rolled her neck, stubbing the first cigarette out before lighting another.

“So?” he asked when she didn’t offer anything more. She was a pretty woman, with dirty blonde hair that fell to her shoulders and soft, doe-like brown eyes. Like Dusan, she had a _real_ job, managing a department in a major retailer making up the cornerstone of a mall. It meant that her hours ranged from regular (when things were good) to all over the place (when emergencies cropped up or a lot of people called out.)

More than once, even when she annoyed the _hell_ out of him by trying to leverage his sexuality against something she wanted, he’d thought that she was too good for Maurice. Coming in on the tail edges of that screaming match last night, Aiden wondered if maybe she was starting to think the same thing.

“He’s dumb,” she said after a long moment of thought, taking a slow drag on her cigarette. “Like, super dumb. Without someone watching him, he’s going to end up in some bullshit, I just know it. But he’s sweet to me. I can walk into a room and he’ll drop everything for me, you know? Even his stupid games with his friends. And he at least _tries_ to understand where I’m coming from, even if he doesn’t really get it.”

“What was last night about?”

Abigail grimaced, her pretty face twisting with frustration. “The Douche is passing more of the utilities to us, so Maurice wants to go back to dealing for the quick cash.”

“Yeah, Dusan’s going to _love_ that idea,” Aiden said dryly, flicking his cigarette and watching the ash sprinkle across the cold concrete under them. His hips were beginning to ache.

“That’s what I told him. He’s not—I know I just said he’s dumb, but he’s not _stupid_ . If he just applied himself, he could do great in customer service. He’s got the personality for it. But it’s _hard work_ and you know how he is about hard work.” She blew out a frustrated sigh, dragging her fingers through her wispy hair. It left it windswept and slightly tangled, looking almost like an intentional style rather than the lingering symptoms of last night’s fight.

He wondered, idly, if this was where a different guy would make a move. With Abigail, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t work—she was fucking devoted, he could see that. But he bet this is what some other dickhead might consider an opening. “Yeah, I know. My schedule isn’t as tight as yours or Dusan’s—you want me to lean on him a bit, maybe kidnap him and drop him off at the mall so he can start looking for openings?”

She laughed a bit helplessly and shook her head, the tip of her cigarette glowing bright in the dim light of the morning. “No, I think I got through to him last night. Thanks for the offer though. And—thanks for listening.”

“No problem,” he said, turning his attention back to the other side of the road as he considered his schedule for the day, his palm rubbing against the line of his knee brace under his jeans. Dusan would probably be up in about twenty minutes, and Aiden could drive him in again—that area had a fair few young professionals who didn’t want to take public transport or learn to drive, which meant easy money for him.

“Hey, Aiden?” Abigail asked, her voice breaking through his calculations. “Why do you always hide your braces?”

He paused, cigarette halfway to his lips. It was… well, it wasn’t an unreasonable question. He’d thought he was better at hiding them, but if Abigail had him figured out, Dusan probably did too. Maurice—Maurice was about as observant as a brick wall. They were the only ones that really got to see him half-dressed though, because he always left them behind when he went trolling for sex.

It hurt worse when he did, and it made his balance a little more uncertain, but it was better than trying to explain to a guy that his arm wasn’t _broken_ , it was just a little fucked up. Not so fucked up that it was a problem. Guys had never complained about his flexibility otherwise. The alcohol took care of the rest.

“I don’t like making a production of it,” he said after a long moment, just stubbing the cigarette out instead of finishing it. “And anyways, would _you_ trust a driver wearing wraps on everything? It’s like a cab that’s all dented up in the front. ‘No, no, really, I’m a great driver, don’t mind the scratches.’”

“I don’t think it’s the same thing,” she said, but there was a wobble of confusion in her voice that meant she’d drop the thought.

“Close enough. I don’t really _need_ them anyways, they just make it easier.” He sighed, pushed himself to his feet, then offered her a hand up.

Her fingers were delicate in his hand, almost as long as his own, and she hefted herself up before grinding her own cigarette out with a fuzzy slipper. “Well, I guess it’s your life. I’m going to go make breakfast, you want some?”

* * *

He almost missed the call from Nicky, but he managed to throw himself off duty and answer it just in time. Rides had been slowing down anyways. About time for him to go for a break.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked, glancing at the clock. It wasn’t a school day, but she usually called at night, not mid-afternoon.

“I’m dropping out and becoming _a circus clown_!” she yelled, something slamming in the background.

He winced. “Okay, well, points for innovation, but don’t do that. One of us has to finish high school.”

“I’m just so—ugh! You will not _believe_ the shit that has been happening this year! It’s so! Just! _Ugh!_ ” Her voice went slightly muffled, like she’d just fallen face first into her bed, then came back clear again. “ _And_ Aunt Molly wants me to work in her stupid restaurant in the afternoons. I hate being a waitress!”

“You could get a job somewhere else, have proof that you’re all grown up without their help. I’m on my way over, we’ll do pizza.” He glanced at the street name he was parked on, then nosed back out into traffic. “Ten minutes, tops.”

“Wow, you’re that close? Couldn’t I just pull up the app and get you, then?”

“I’m off duty, kiddo. _Some_ of us haven’t had lunch yet. Try not to get into a screaming match with Mom before I get there?” For all his tone was joking, he _was_ serious about her not fighting with Mom. His relationship with their mother was strained enough _without_ a window-rattling fight to announce his arrival.

“ _Ugh_ ,” groaned Nicky, “Just get here soon.”

He stepped on it. Nicky was going through a rough time. He got that. He _really_ did. At this point in the year, at her age, he’d been kicked out of home and living with Damien, so she was still doing better than him. If she managed to stick it out and graduate, she’d be the first one in their little family to actually get a highschool diploma.

Not the first in their wider family. The aunts—actually his mother’s cousins, though they’d insisted on being called ‘Aunt’ from the moment all three of them had landed in America—had kids of their own, and most of those kids had graduated just fine. Were in college just fine. Continuing on in life, just fine, like every other normal group of young adults. Sometimes it felt like he and Nicky were the only real fuckups in the extended family.

He was, at least. She hadn’t actually graduated to ‘fuckup’ category yet, not even with the shit their aunts liked to insinuate sometimes.

The problem—the _real_ problem, the reason why she was calling _him_ in a rage instead of crying her heart out over whatever problem it was in Mom’s arms—was that their mother agreed with them. When he was younger, Aiden used to think that it would be like a heartwarming movie, soulful pop songs playing as Mom told them that it didn’t _matter_ , that they’d always be a family and the aunts could all go fuck themselves. He used to think that they were the poor relations, that the three of them were in the same boat, that it was them against the world and his mother would always have his back.

But he’d figured it out. Mom was the beloved cousin, bright eyed and fair-haired, the one that went off with a _terrible_ man and had come back to the loving embrace of her cousins and aunt. She’d been raised in that family, instead of by her own parents, so maybe it made them her sisters instead. She’d been loved. She’d been _wanted_.

Nicky had been an inconvenience to the picture. And Aiden was something even worse: an awful copy of that _terrible_ man, and the perfect stand-in for every bit of shit the aunts wanted to chuck his way.

Maybe he could ask Abigail if her store was hiring. Working in Molly’s pub would eat Nicky alive long before she graduated. It was bad enough that he’d had to leave her behind to listen to all the bile and vitriol the family could throw at her deviant, disgusting, homosexual brother, but working in that kind of environment? It’d kill her. He knew that.

If Abigail wasn’t hiring, someone else was. He’d help Nicky put her resume in around town if he had to.

She was waiting on the front porch when he pulled up, eyes still red-rimmed and her hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. It was losing its blonde, darkening as she got older—he’d been the same way, going from the wispy blonde hair of his mother to the dark brown of his father over his teen years. She’d been making noises about bleaching it, so he added that to his mental list of places to go today.

“School really sucks that bad, huh?” he asked as she climbed in, chucking her purse on the floorboards with more viciousness than was strictly warranted.

“It’s so fucking—ugh! And of _course_ Mom gives me that _look_ every time I swear around her, as if Aunt Mary Anne doesn’t swear like a sailor, which, _whatever_ Mom. Do you want to know what happened yesterday?” She slammed her seatbelt on and folded her arms, looking for all the world like a stock photo of ‘grumpy teen’.

Aiden carefully checked his urge to laugh. She wouldn’t appreciate it, and he remembered what it was like to be sixteen and miserable. “Yeah, go ahead and tell me. It’s like eight minutes to the pizza place.”

“Oh, I will need _more_ than eight minutes,” she started, before launching into a winding and furious rant about the bitches in her history class. The same bitches—or maybe different bitches, which were not the Bitches—had also been making her English and photography classes miserable, which was a disaster. Nicky was a humanities girl at heart; having her only refuge be the STEM classes and gym was the single most galling thing to happen to her.

“And as if _that_ wasn’t bad enough—” she raged as they walked into the pizza parlor, not stopping to order. Aiden took care of that, getting them both a proper deep dish before settling back in a corner booth, steering her carefully to her seat.

The other problem was boys, apparently. Boys, because they were too young and too stupid to be _men_ , and she would _not_ call another sophomore a ‘man’ if she could help it. They were failing to either flirt with, or not flirt with, her the way she wanted, and worse, her crush had been snapped up by one of the Bitches. Whether she’d made her attraction to him known wasn’t totally clear, but Aiden didn’t interrupt to ask.

“And of _course_ , there’s _Mom—_ ” she snarled, as they tossed their trash and headed out, Aiden leaving a tip on the counter. She didn’t question the fact that Aiden turned away from their mother’s house and towards the mall, too invested in her list of grievances with their mother.

They were: the house was never clean enough for Mom’s liking, she couldn’t have a new phone for at least another year because Mom had taken the upgrade for herself, she’d been caught talking to boys on social media and gotten her internet access restricted, she kept getting dragged to church even though she thought it was _stupid_ , she had to get a job but not a _real_ job that might damage her pretty looks, but she couldn’t be too pretty because that meant wearing _makeup_ and _bleaching_ her hair which wasn’t godly, her skirts were too short and her blouses were buttoned too low even when she hadn’t _done_ anything, her boobs were too big but her waist wasn’t small enough, and Mom was always nagging, nagging, _nagging_ about it.

“And then there’s the restaurant,” she finally said, exhausted, as they walked through the entrance.

“Is Mom pushing for it because she actually wants you to work there during the school year, or does Aunt Molly have another boy lined up for you to meet?” Aiden asked, hands in his pockets as he started on a wide, lazy loop of the building. They didn’t have to buy anything to make the trip worthwhile. Walking with his sister was enough.

“God, I don’t even _know_ anymore. Mom’s been harping on about the job thing, so I said fine, I’ll drive for a living like you do.” She huffed, flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. “You can guess how _that_ went.”

He really could. ‘Not well’ was the beginning of it, and ‘cataclysmically bad’ was somewhere in the middle, with ‘shocked that Nicky wasn’t chained to the bed and getting exorcised of any possible homosexual leanings’ at the end. “You have to be eighteen to work for my company anyways.”

“Ha. Well, _that_ never came up, but Aunt Molly’s restaurant sure did.” Nicky sighed, explosive and world-weary. “I don’t want to wait tables in an Irish pub, Aiden. The hours suck, the patrons are all old guys and super ugly, and the grease is going to kill my skin. I can only buy so many face masks!”

“Poor baby,” he said, more sympathetic than mocking, then slung an arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Look. We’ll do a round here, see who’s hiring. If you’re lucky, one of those clothing stores you like has an opening and you’ll get an employee discount. And once we’ve got every place hiring written down, we’ll stop by a Sally’s and pick up some bleach for your hair.”

“Do you _know_ how to bleach hair?” she asked, deftly dodging the requirement she _find another place to work_ first.

“Not a damn clue. But Clara’s got a friend who’s a DJ, and he dyes his hair blue, so he’s bound to know how to bleach hair. Or… one of the other DedSec members. Wrench and Sitara had bleached hair, I think.” He was reasonably sure he’d caught a glimpse of hair so burned by peroxide it was nearly straw under Wrench’s hood, at least.

“Your friends are fucking weird, Aiden.” Nicky swung her hip into his with a soft laugh, nearly sending them both tumbling over, but at least she was smiling now. Getting it all out in the open had helped.

“Yeah, well, so am I. Come on, it looks like that store has paper applications, you want to keep an eye out for those—online ones are run through computer algorithms that judge based on an average worker response, not actually the ‘best’ or ‘worst’ answers. Paper will work better for you, a teen with no work experience.”

She rolled her eyes, immediately dismissing what he was saying, but that was par for the course. Aiden worried. Nicky took things in stride. It had been like that since the day she was born, perfect and innocent and his to protect. She wasn’t the first two anymore, but he still wanted to protect her, as much as he could.

Which wasn’t much, ultimately. With him out of the house and her contact with him limited by how far she was willing to push their mother on a given week, he couldn’t stay involved in her life, on top of her problems with family and grades and The Bitches (whoever they were.) He didn’t get to help her with her math homework, or teach her how to drive.

It hurt. It hurt everytime he remembered he was locked out of her life. If it weren’t for the fact that Nicky adamantly refused to let him slip out of her grip, he was pretty sure that he’d never have seen her again after he’d been kicked out. But here she was, with a stack of paper applications in hand, muttering about how half these companies made her do an online applications _anyways_. Aiden was a pretty lucky brother like that.

By the time they’d collected enough applications—and written down the names and websites of stores that hired through online portals—Nicky was whining about child labor laws and dragging her feet. He swung them around to one of the chain coffee shops in the mall and let her order some ungodly sugar concoction. Next to his black medium roast, it was an explosion of syrup and color.

“Can you even taste that? Does it even have a taste anymore?” he asked when she plopped down in a chair next to him, pulling her legs up. The paper applications were stuffed in her bag, secure if not very well hidden.

“You just need to grow a sense of adventure,” she informed him, rolling her eyes as she sipped at the sugary mess claiming to be a frozen coffee.

“I have a sense of adventure. Unlike _you_ , I actually get to go out drinking and clubbing. The benefits of age and wisdom.” He grinned at the loud scoffing noise she made.

“Partying isn’t the only kind of adventure! When was the last time you went, I don’t know, hiking or something?” Nicky swept a hand out dramatically, though she kept her voice low enough that it didn’t disturb the other patrons ordering drinks.

“In Chicago?” Aiden let her see just how ludicrous he thought that idea was, then changed the subject. “Okay. Assuming you get a job and Mom lets you off the hook with Aunt Molly, do you need help setting up a college fund? Do you have a bank account?”

“Not yet,” she said, swirling her straw with a frown. Were there sprinkles in that drink? “Mom said she’d open up a joint with me when Aunt Molly paid me for working over the summer, but I think she’s just been having her send the money to her own account.”

That sounded like their mother—at least, the woman their mother had become. “Before we hit the Sally’s, we’ll do that. I’m twenty-one, I can open one up with you. My bank’s pretty good.”

“Won’t that just make Mom angry with you? Well, angrier,” she corrected with a wince.

“Kiddo, at this point? God himself would have to come down from the Heavens to make her stop being angry with me. I can take the heat.” He nudged her gently, waiting for her to meet his eyes before smiling. “Don’t worry about Mom. Worst comes to worst, you can’t get a job and Aunt Molly sends all your checks to her—and you’ll still have a bank account. I can’t put much in, but a couple bucks a month will keep it open without any fees.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, and he got the feeling that Mom wasn’t the thing she was worried about this time.

“Positive,” he said firmly, smile not faltering for even a second. If it made his budget a little tight on occasion, that was fine—between his roommates, DedSec, and Clara, he could bum meals off of the people he knew.

And the least Jordi could do for him was buy a couple more lunches. It still didn’t make them friends, and it certainly didn’t make them anything more impressive than fuckbuddies. Neither of which he was going to say to his sister, because explaining how he’d even _met_ Jordi—much less their actual relationship—was nothing a teenage girl needed to hear.

She didn’t look convinced, but she did let him take her to the bank and set an account up. He transferred fifty dollars to it to start, ignoring how that dropped his own account down lower than he’d like, then dragged her off to a store they could get bleach and strawberry blonde hair dye from.

It was late afternoon, almost edging into evening, by the time he took her back home. The sun gleamed orange through his car windows, washing the streets and buildings in gold. When he pulled up to the curb, there was a car sitting in the driveway that hadn’t been there earlier, and his heart sank. Too much to hope that their mother wouldn’t have been home yet. And she was bound to have noticed Nicky missing.

He climbed out of the car with her, grabbing her bag of hair products and handing it over. With her purse slung over her shoulder and no tears in her eyes, she looked a lot more alive than she had earlier.

“Just remember,” Aiden said, catching her by the arm before she could get up the drive, “if you get a job somewhere else, you don’t have to work in Aunt Molly’s restaurant. Fill out those applications tonight. Once you’ve got a couple done you’ll get into the rhythm of it.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but it was with a soft smile. They both knew that he was only pushy because he worried. “I _will_ , Aiden, don’t worry. And _I’ll_ take _you_ out for pizza with my first paycheck. Deal?”

“Deal.” He let her go, watching her head up the drive despite his misgivings. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t afford to take her with him. Even if their mom let her go, he couldn’t justify shoving a teenager into the tight confines of his apartment.

The door opened before Nicky reached it, their mother frowning at her before turning her gaze to Aiden down by the road. Her hair was going dusty white as she got older, the blonde fading to silver and then further with the years, and he knew there were faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Too far away from him to see them, or the way her skin had gone velvet-soft with age even though she was barely past forty.

With her hard grey eyes on him, he felt like he was sixteen again, arms and legs too long for his gawky body and screaming at her that he was her _son_ , that she couldn’t do this to _him_. Not that it had ever mattered. Nicky was her daughter, one of the ones that belonged in the family with the aunts and their grandmother and the cousins who didn’t look like the man that had hurt her.

He was just the spitting image of his father.

Mom shut the door behind Nicky. Aiden climbed in the car, fingers hovering for a second over the screen of his phone before he put himself on duty again. He’d have to make another hundred by the end of next week if he wanted to feel financially secure again.


	6. INTERMISSION I: Clara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something very short while I finish up the next chapter, mostly to dip my toes into Clara’s POV a little bit. She’s a main character too, goddamn it, and she’s damn well going to get chapters of her own. Someday. _Real_ chapters, with blackjack and hookers.

_Boys_ , she thought with exasperation, scrolling through the slightly panicked texts on her phone.

“Hey. You bleach your hair, right?” She nudged Defalt where he was half-sprawled on one of her thighs, nose buried deep in some code. His brother didn’t have phone access for the next two weeks, which meant he’d been looking for distractions to keep himself busy.

He grunted, instead of answering. It _was_ a stupid question, she supposed, but he could be so rude for no reason sometimes.

“Hey.” She bounced her thigh, hard, banging it into the back of his head. “Don’t ignore me, you dickhead.”

“Ow, what the _fuck_ , Clara,” he whined, making a whole production out of wrapping his hands around his head and rolling back and forth. He really was a good actor when he wanted to be. “You don’t have to be a fucking cunt about it if you want me to finally bleach all that ass out of your hair.”

“As if. Aiden needs advice on hair bleach. Since I have no idea what products you use, and I don’t want to pass him over to Wrench—”

“Fucking moron’s never heard of conditioner.”

“— _you_ have the honor of being our hair care expert. Revel in the opportunity, Defalt. You will never be an expert of anything ever again” She smirked down at him as he scoffed loudly and sat up. Hitting him in the ego was always the fastest way to get him to do something.

Boys were so easy to manipulate like that. Once upon a time, Clara might have felt some guilt over it, but c’est la vie. If they weren’t so _obvious_ , then she wouldn’t have to use it against them.

Perhaps it was for the best that they were so easy, though. Defalt wasn’t good at making friends—he and Wrench got on like a house on fire, including the parts where the gas main when and they both exploded, but if it weren’t for her? He never would have left his room, drowning himself in code and music to keep from drowning in the aching despair of trying to be the rock his brother needed. She knew he wouldn’t give it up for anything, but—well, she worried. Defalt loved his brother like flowers loved the sun; it wasn’t anything he could help, and it wasn’t anything he could even conceive of stopping.

She liked his brother too. The man was sweet when he was stable, and he’d done his best to take care of her best friend over the years. She’d only met him in person a few times since coming down from Canada, but he’d never seemed like the kind of man that could walk out on his parents with his baby brother in tow—but he had, and she couldn’t fault him for the damage it had left behind.

His brother tried. She’d spent a decade worrying every day that her online friend would never log in again, but his brother made sure that never happened. So she held her tongue when he’d checked himself into an inpatient mental care facility, and she held her tongue when Defalt funneled all the money he could into it, but she wouldn’t let Defalt _rot_ for his brother’s sake.

He was moving now, laptop set to the side as he grabbed Clara’s phone, eyes narrowed in annoyance at the increasingly frantic stream of texts from Aiden. “Oh shit, is _this_ fucking idiot going to dye his hair too now? Remember when we were actually fucking unique?”

“That ship sailed the second we joined DedSec, you know that,” she said with a smirk, tipping into his space to watch him type.

“Posers,” he sneered, though his thumbs didn’t pause as he wrote out recommendations and tips. “His hair isn’t long enough for half these questions. He got a girlfriend?”

“He has a sister. Maybe she’s the one bleaching her hair?” Clara considered that. She knew Aiden had a sister, and that she was in highschool, but he was pretty close-lipped about his family life.

Well. She was too. So really, it seemed to be a trend with her and her friends.

“Oh shit. Is she a hot sister?”

“She’s sixteen, so…”

He made a face, the snakebites in his lower lips pulling as he grimaced. “Ugh, why don’t you ever introduce me to hot girls?”

“Because I’m already fucking them,” she said, earning herself a crude snicker from him.

“Well, you could always let me _watch_.”

She rolled her eyes and refused to let herself be dragged down that rabbit hole again. He was absolutely terrible, and if she gave him an inch he would take a mile. A very long, very pornographic mile.

“Okay, hang on, I need to facetime this fucking moron,” Defalt said, leaning back against her. “How does he not know the difference between toner and developer? What a dipshit. You’re so lucky I’m nice enough to answer his stupid questions.”

“Uh-huh,” said Clara, watching the way he lit up with a task at hand, fully distracted from worrying about his brother.

_Boys_ , she thought fondly. What would they do without her?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have the next chapter mostly done too? But I want to get 9 _started_ before I actually post it, so I’m afraid y’all will have to suffer without until then.

Despite his mutinous thoughts about Jordi feeding him, Aiden couldn’t help the familiar surge of exasperation when the other man fell into step beside him outside their second Monday class a few weeks later. He didn’t actually _want_ to spend the extra time with the guy, but they’d started doing lunch every Monday and Wednesday before he got to work, and it was becoming a _habit_.

A third of the way through the semester, he didn’t want to have any habits that involved Jordi. Other than sex. The sex was fine. The sex was _fantastic_.

The way Jordi wrapped an arm around his shoulders and turned him towards the parking lot was less fantastic.

“So I finally found an Italian place that gets good reviews,” Jordi said, absolutely oblivious to Aiden’s stewing resentment. “It’s, what, maybe an hour out of the way? Totally worth it for lunch. We can talk rough drafts when we get there.”

“An hour—an _hour_ out of the way? Jordi, I do actually have to do deliveries today, you know that, right?” He slammed an elbow into Jordi’s ribs and tried not to resent the way it hit a solid wall of muscle and went nowhere.

It just wasn’t fair. Rich, smart, _and_ disgustingly well toned. Some people had all the fucking luck.

“Right, right, yeah, but this’ll put you in around a bunch of those places that do the delivery thing, right? So it’s like… a work-time investment or whatever. Come on, I haven’t done Italian in so goddamn long. It’ll be fun.” Jordi’s hand squeezed his shoulder, then let go as he broke off to head to his coupe.

As much as Aiden wanted to tell him _then go and eat alone_ , they really did need to work out their rough draft. He’d let most of his time go towards his other classes, focusing hard on the labs for Anatomy and nothing else—their Intro to Anthropology class had a lot more textbook-oriented discussion posts online than he’d anticipated, so plowing his way through the chapters for _those_ along with all the chapters for Anatomy was making it hard to work on the paper.

And Jordi wasn’t helping much.

He’d hoped that there would be a lot more of Jordi pulling his weight—and here, Aiden absolutely considered Jordi’s weight to be much more than his own—so he could focus on his other classes, but so far it hadn’t been the case. Jordi was more than willing to tell Aiden where he was _wrong,_ but he wasn’t doing much to compile any extra information for the paper. At most, he had a selection of sources he was willing to dole out.

It was infuriating, but he couldn’t demand more without looking like an asshole. Not really. And Aiden _refused_ to be the asshole in this group project, not when Jordi was such a perfect example of it.

This restaurant was an hour away. _An hour_. Where did he get off asking Aiden to drive an entire goddamn hour for some goddamn restaurant? On a Monday afternoon? During the school week? When they had _midterms_ coming up soon?

God, he needed to study for those. His programming classes he wasn’t too worried about—the teachers were relatively chill, and he was better at code than he was at, well, everything else, years of doing the easier pieces of Damien’s homework coming in handy now that he was learning the rest that went on with the job. Maybe he could pull a couple sleepless nights doing that, or maybe he could start shoving his books in his truck for those downtimes when the rides stopped coming in before the late-night rush—there was always a period of time between peak hours for the clubs and last call where everyone stopped _going_ places because they were already there.

He could try and cram then, maybe go to a review session…

The part of him that was desperate to pass whispered that he could go to Jordi’s place and ask him for help with studying. His pride (and his certainty that Jordi had never studied a day in his life) warred with it, hunting for excuses not to even ask. Sex was more likely to happen than studying, if Jordi felt the need to editorialize then Aiden would be too angry to remember anything, hauling his books back and forth into Jordi’s condo would mean wearing his braces or wrapping his shoulders to keep them stable…

Ugh. There were plenty of reasons not to approach Jordi about studying, and one giant, glaring reason to try anyways: Jordi had gotten hundreds on every single lab report he’d handed in. All of his homework came with perfects. He got complimented on his contributions in their other classes. They’d had a pop quiz in Anthropology and while Aiden hadn’t done too bad (86%), Jordi had done so much better (105%, accounting for the extra credit question.)

He was doing _something_ right, and it wasn’t enough to assume he was just naturally gifted. That was probably most of it, but it couldn’t be _all_ of it. So he was bound to have some ideas for Aiden to use just to _pass,_  just a C or higher, all he needed was the bare minimum of passing and it would be fine—

Aiden forced himself to unlock his jaw, his fingers clenched so tight around the steering wheel that the ache spread up through his wrists.

At lunch, he’d bring the subject up. If Jordi was going to make him drive all the way out here for lunch, he could at least hear out Aiden’s concerns. The son of a bitch might not help him, but at least he would have asked, and that was doing something to try and keep his GPA from taking a nosedive.

Traffic, thank god, was light enough that they made it to the restaurant in less time than Jordi had estimated. Aiden spotted the sign as he drove past, hunting for a parking garage—Jordi pulled into one maybe a five minute walk from the place, so Aiden just followed him in and trusted that Jordi knew this area better than he did. There weren’t two parking spots next to each other, but he was able to snag one only a dozen feet away, closer to the stairs down. Perfect.

He waited by his car for Jordi to reach him, then fell into step and hated how easy it was to match Jordi’s stride.

“So, why haven’t you had Italian in ‘so long’ anyways?” he asked, ducking under Jordi’s arm to head into the stairwell.

The other man let the door swing shut behind him, chasing Aiden down the stairs a step at a time. “Unlike every other joint I’ve ever seen, this one’s got a gluten free menu that’s worth a damn. That’s pretty fucking hard to get with American-Italian, it’s a very _bready_ cuisine.”

Of course Jordi bought into the gluten free shit. Aiden thought about asking him why he didn’t go all in with the non-GMO vegan shit too, but tempered it to, “Didn’t picture you for a fad dieter.”

He held open the door at the base of the stairs and got a very odd look for it, Jordi’s brow furrowing like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be insulted or not. As if Aiden couldn’t return the favor or something. Dick.

“Dude, I have celiac,” Jordi said, squinting into the bright afternoon and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’ll shit my brains out if I eat wheat.”

Oh. _Oh_. Well now _Aiden_ looked like the asshole, that was fantastic.

“Sorry,” he muttered, falling into step again and tucking his chin into the collar of his jacket. Christ, they weren’t even properly in autumn yet and the wind was already trying to eat the warmth out of his bones.

“Eh, whatever. I’m used to assumptions.” Jordi went silent for a few seconds, then came back oozing in smugness. “Pretty impressive deduction skills there though, chief. I’ve been ordering gluten free at pretty much every place we eat at, and you only just _now_ noticed?”

“I’m not in the habit of analyzing my fuckbuddy’s eating choices. Sue me.” Any lingering guilt he’d had over his nastier thoughts vanished. Jordi could handle a little bit of condescension in return.

“Maybe I will! I’m gonna call this emotional damages and, what, let’s throw libel in? You think I can get you for libel? Calling me a _fad dieter_ , as if this physique could be maintained by anything other than dedication and ring time.” Jordi laughed at his own joke, clearly pleased by his wit.

Don’t ask, Aiden told himself firmly. Don’t ask. He didn’t care about whatever routine Jordi kept to for his muscles, or whatever he did in his free time—if it wasn’t working on their group project, Aiden wasn’t interested. So he wouldn’t ask. Because if he asked that was an invitation to share and he wasn’t. Going. To. Ask.

“Ring time?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m part of a local MMA league thing. Nothing official. My face is too pretty to actually sign up for _fights_. But that shit’s better than crossfit, you know? And I hate jogging and lifting weights, so…” Jordi glanced at him, a sly smirk spreading across his face. “Wanna come watch me sometime?”

“I’m probably going to be busy,” Aiden said dryly, because telling Jordi _god_ yes he would, and maybe blow him in the showers afterwards, was a little too honest for Aiden’s pride.

He envied Jordi, though. For a brief year and a half in high school, he’d been on the hockey team. For an even briefer stint of time after he’d dropped out, he’d boxed on the weekends, letting his trainer’s voice wash over him as he took out all of his feelings on a punching bag that couldn’t punch back.

In the end, he’d had to quit both because making money came first. It was probably for the best anyways; even when he wrapped his hands and wrists, even when he taped up his shoulders and braced his ankles, any sort of full-contact sport left him crippled for day afterwards. These days, his exercise mostly consisted of hauling books around and taking the stairs whenever possible.

It meant he’d never have sculpted abs like Jordi did, but he liked to think he made up for it in other ways. Never had any complaints about it yet, at least.

“You’re no fun,” Jordi said, but he let the conversation lapse into silence as they made their way across a sidestreet towards the restaurant.

Winter was going to fuck him up. Aiden felt the knowledge of that sink into his gut as a particularly sharp gust of wind whipped by them, burying its teeth in his joints. It always fucked him up, since he’d been a kid, leaving his joints hot to the touch and his left arm aching, but this one was shaping up to be nasty _real_ early in the fall. Chicago was a little meaner to him than Belfast had been, but not by much.

He just wasn’t built for these kinds of climates, Aiden thought ruefully. Too bad he had no intention of moving for warmer climes. At least, not until Nicky was out of high school and considering colleges—if she decided to go somewhere down south, he’d probably follow her. If she went north… Jesus christ. Thank god her grades were just poor enough that the Ivy League was pretty much out of her scope.

Thankfully, the restaurant was close enough that only his left wrist was stiff by the time they reached it, and Aiden could play that off by using his right arm instead. Jordi held the door for him again, the rich smell of Italian food wafting out as Aiden ducked under his arm and into the area right in front of the hostess stand.

“Table for two,” he said, because this was a routine now despite all his attempts to prevent exactly that.

“One gluten free menu,” chimed in Jordi from behind him, letting the door swing shut as he moved into Aiden’s personal bubble.

The place wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t full either. They were seated right away, a small corner booth with just enough room for a couple. Somehow, Aiden ended up on the inside of the curve, and he tried to figure out how Jordi had managed _that_ while the other man crowed over the menu.

“Look at this!” Jordi’s voice lifted in childish glee, jabbing the menu. “ _Dedicated_ gluten free kitchen space and a fucking pasta machine for their own noodles! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had fresh noodles?”

“Ages?” Aiden guessed, scanning the drink menu with serious intent. He might very well need one just to get through this meal.

“Ages! Since I was fucking thirteen! Do you know how awful it is to be the kid with the wheat allergy when you’re thirteen? It fucking _sucks_ , Aiden.” Jordi stole Aiden’s menu as well, comparing the offerings between the two with a glint in his eyes. “Oh, I’m getting take out. I’m so getting take out too. I’m going to eat so much pasta and get so fat, you have no idea.”

“So much for that dedicated ring time, huh?” Yeah, he was getting a drink. Just enough to take the edge off, because right now, between Jordi and the weather and the stress of midterms? Aiden was all edges.

“Whatever, I’ll just put in some extra hours to burn the carbs off. Fucking—ravioli? Are you shitting me? Gluten free ravioli. I’m going to lose my fucking mind, this is better than having sex for the first time.”

Aiden choked, recovering as quickly as he could when the waitress made her way over. She was neatly styled up, just like the hostess had been, both of them looking more high-end than Aiden thought he probably deserved. Maybe he should have dressed up for this too, but most of the other diners were in business casual at best.

She took their drink orders—water and a soda for Jordi, wine for Aiden because the beer menu simply didn’t exist—and left once Jordi denied wanting bread for the table. Which left him with nothing but time to ask questions.

“It can’t seriously compare to sex for the first time,” Aiden said, because he was a genius who _never_ got sidetracked by Jordi’s bullshit. “Unless you mean that in a bad way.”

“What? No, my first time was great. Life changing. Just like this ravioli is going to be.” Jordi rubbed his hands together greedily and genuinely appeared to be serious.

“Ravioli isn’t even that _good_.” At the poisonous look he got for that, Aiden leaned back, his own eyebrows shooting up.

“Spoken like a man who hasn’t been denied it for over a decade. Here, look at this menu—I don’t wanna risk getting cross contaminated for this, so you’re ordering gluten free too. Go hog wild.” Jordi shoved the menu into Aiden’s hands, but immediately shifted closer to keep reading it. Or maybe to judge Aiden’s potential lunch choices. Hard to tell.

Aiden bit his tongue on whatever snarky response wanted to rise and looked at the menu. It seemed pretty standard to _him_ , but maybe Jordi was right about not getting Italian very often—all the noodle dishes were listed with ‘gluten-free pasta available by request’ while some of the others were simply marked as safe without any alterations. Since he’d gone an hour out of his way for this, and since Jordi was paying anyways, Aiden resolved to get at least two things and take the lot of it back home.

“So, real shit: why didn’t you want to do lunch today? I mean, come on, it’s not _that_ out of your way,” Jordi said, before jabbing a finger into the menu. “You should try that, I bet it’s delicious.”

He took a couple slow breaths, tamping down on the initial surge of anger, then said as evenly as he could, “I have to work, Jordi. I can’t afford to go an hour out of my way for no reason, not when mid-afternoon into evenings is the best time to run food. And I’m a _little_ stressed about midterms coming up, so my free time is pretty much nonexistent right now.”

Jordi shot him a baffled look, brows coming down as his head tipped. “Why the hell are you stressed? We’ve got this in the bag. I mean, all you need is a little—”

“I am not _smart_ like you, Jordi,” Aiden hissed, mindful of the fact that they were still in public. “I don’t get hundreds on my lab reports, I barely know what the hell we’re doing for our project, and _half this class_ rests on the test grades we get! I am not going to do well on this test! So I would say that I _don’t_ have this in the bag, that the bag doesn’t fucking exist, that the bag is in your _house_ because you are the only person at this table right now who has anything in it!”

By the time he came winding down to a finish he was breathing hard, a little flushed, and acutely aware of their waitress heading for the table with a too-bright smile on her face. Aiden broke away from Jordi’s gaze, quickly scanning the menu a final time and putting in his order as soon as she reached them. After a long, thoughtful beat of silence, Jordi followed him, handing their menus back over once she’d finished writing it all down.

She’d brought their drinks too, which was a small blessing. At least the wine could help fuzz over the embarrassment warring with the frustration in his gut.

“How much do you make in an afternoon?” Jordi asked, bumping his knee into Aiden’s.

“What?” He shot Jordi a narrow-eyed glare of suspicion, then shifted his leg a little further away. Maybe he should have made more of an effort to be on the outside, so he could leave this god awful situation. Worst came to worst, he was flexible enough to wiggle under the table and escape if no other options presented themselves.

“An afternoon of driving. How much do you make? Deliveries, rides, whatever, hit me with it.”

Aiden warred with himself for a few seconds, wounded pride locking horns with the wary curiosity and desire to get it through Jordi’s thick head that _he couldn’t afford this_. Reluctantly, he said, “Maybe twenty dollars on a bad day, fifty on a good one. Why?”

“Okay, first of all, you’re not allowed to get offended by what I’m about to do.” Jordi held up a finger, pulled out his wallet, then passed a short stack of bills over to Aiden’s corner of the table. “Second, you should start coming by my place on Mondays and Tuesdays too—I know we do Thursdays already, but I can help you study.”

“I am not a charity case,” Aiden said, fists curled so tight that his knuckles were white.

“No, look, I _just_ said you’re not allowed to get offended. Just let me help you, alright? We can cram for the midterm, work on the paper, and you won’t be all… this about everything. Okay?” With a wave of a hand indicating Aiden’s tightly wound muscles, Jordi leaned back. The stack of bills sat between them like an accusation.

After a minute, Aiden managed to unlock his muscles long enough to pick up the stack and flip through it. The bills were all fifties and hundreds, the entire damn thing equalling up to his rent for the month and then some. It was an obscene amount of money.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, manual effort needed to unclench his teeth again. Moving robotically, he picked up his glass of wine and downed the whole thing in one go, ignoring the low whistle of appreciation from Jordi.

He’d be stupid to turn the money down. If his mother had been here, that was exactly what she would have done—the Kelly family had their pride, and his mother was the proudest of them all. They worked for a living. They didn’t accept handouts. Even if Aiden was a Pearce instead of a Kelly, his mother’s blood ran through his veins and so did her pride. He didn’t _need_ this. He’d pulled himself up by his goddamn bootstraps more than once.

But.

He did need to pass this class.

“No strings attached?” he asked, voice tight and wary as he folded the stack of bills up and shoved them into his own wallet.

“No strings attached,” Jordi said, voice surprisingly honest. But then, Jordi was always honest. It was one of the most annoying things about him, that he was perfectly honest about whatever stupid, smug thought ran through his head on a given day.

Aiden nodded, then lifted a hand to flag down their waitress. “You’ve got a deal, then. I’m getting another drink.”


	8. Chapter 8

The nice thing about fucking Jordi was that he was a very _generous_ lover. He’d taken to gay sex like a duck to water, all the hesitance and nerves vanishing as soon as he realized Aiden’s body was just like anyone else’s. If he hadn’t gotten around to bottoming yet, well, that was kind of Aiden’s fault too—he hadn’t gotten around to asking.

Jordi’s mouth was currently dragging slow and wet over Aiden’s nipple, his palms fitting neatly over Aiden’s hips. Both of their laptops sat open on the coffee table, Aiden’s textbook open and forlorn on the chapter about kidneys, a practice exam half-finished and abandoned with the pages spread over both keyboards. It was hard to remember why he’d been so frantic about it all when Jordi’s body was pressing against his own, warm and muscular and offensively attractive.

“Fuck, you’re going to drive me insane with that,” Aiden groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. It was a mistake, because if watching Jordi worship his chest had been arousing, feeling the slight catch of teeth on his nipple without warning was like taking a shot of pure lust.

“That,” Jordi said, popping his mouth off Aiden’s chest with an obscene, wet noise, “is the point. You need to relax or you won’t take any of this in.”

“This is supposed to be relaxing?” He lifted his arm to peek under it at Jordi, who grinned the moment Aiden caught his gaze.

“Uh-huh. Here’s the plan: I wind you up until you’re so tight you wanna burst, and then when I fuck you, you come so hard you can’t even dream of being stressed for at least, like, ten minutes. And we just do that until you finish studying the chapters on the midterm.” Jordi actually, and without a hint of irony to his expression, waggled his eyebrows as he said it. Jesus christ.

Still, Aiden wasn’t inclined to kick him off the couch for it. He really didn’t see how this was supposed to help him study—Jordi’s theory was half-baked at best, stress was _not_ the reason Aiden couldn’t keep everything straight in his head—but he wasn’t about to turn down sex. Not when his shirt was already off, abandoned somewhere in Jordi’s living room along with the other man’s jacket and button up.

That they both had their pants on was a fluke, because it had only taken half an hour for them to progress from schoolwork to heavy petting. And then Jordi had stopped kissing him to go south and _now_ …

Jordi’s tongue followed the trail of hair down Aiden’s chest, his mouth working over the soft skin of Aiden’s stomach. Aiden dropped his arm back over his eyes, tipping his head back against the arm of the couch. The hands on his hips shifted and hooked in the hem of his jeans, tugging at them as Jordi’s mouth moved ever lower. There was no way he was really going to—was he?

“Learned how to blow a guy all on your own?” Aiden asked, his voice rough with eagerness.

“I have watched so much porn to practice with,” Jordi said, pulling his mouth away as he sat up and tugged more insistently at Aiden’s jeans. Intrigued, he lifted hips, making it easier for Jordi to pull them down.

“Did you suck off a banana too?” Aiden finally pulled his arm away, shifting up on his elbows to watch instead. His cock stood dark and proud, Jordi’s thick, pale fingers curling around the base. Something not quite like nervousness and not quite like  excitement coiled in his gut, joining the lust and sending prickles of eagerness up his spine.

“Nah. I bought a dildo, thought about trying it out at some point, and realized I could practice on that instead.” Jordi grinned at him, acknowledging Aiden’s jolt of surprise with another waggle of his eyebrows. “You’re still my first real dick though, I promise. How’d you learn?”

“Jesus, Jordi,” Aiden said, scrubbing a hand over his cheek like he could banish the stain of pink from it. “Not with a dildo, that’s for sure.”

“Did _you_ use a banana?” Jordi’s palm dragged up over his shaft, confident and firm. It was hard for Aiden to keep his brain on the conversation when his dick kept getting fondled, but he made an effort.

“Flexible enough that I could suck myself off. I had a boyfriend teach me though.”

He’d said the first part just to see how Jordi reacted, and it was everything he could want—the smooth, smug expression slipping as open _want_ replaced it, Jordi’s lips parting as he flushed. Aiden had tried to take pictures of himself once for a grindr hookup he was planning to meet and none of them had looked right, but the imaginary version of himself looked good enough apparently. Jordi’s fingers tightened around him, and then the other man cleared his throat and looked down.

“Guess that means I don’t really get to complain about it being too hard to do, huh?” he said, licking his lips.

“Nope,” Aiden agreed with a grin of his own, finally holding the upper hand even if he was the one half-dressed on Jordi’s couch. “But if you choke on it, I’ll understand completely. It _is_ pretty big.”

Jordi’s expression twitched, pride warring with the urge to snark about Aiden’s perfectly average cock. Then he flattened his other hand across Aiden’s stomach and moved down, his lips hesitating just above the head before tentatively pressing against it.

Not the most impressive start to a blowjob he’d ever had, but Aiden hadn’t expected to get a blowjob without asking pretty much _ever_ either. He shifted and put all of his weight on one elbow, ignoring the way it almost sent his shoulder out of joint. His free hand buried itself in Jordi’s hair, thumb smoothing over the soft skin of his temple as the shaggy locks slipped between his fingers.

“Just watch your teeth and I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Aiden said, because ‘get on with it already’ was an asshole thing to say to the guy blowing you. He knew from experience.

“Yeah, okay,” Jordi muttered, his breath ghosting hot over Aiden’s shaft.

Then he clearly threw his nervousness to the wind, with the same abrupt shift in attitude he’d had the first night they’d fucked. Jordi’s tongue flattened over the vein on the underside of his cock and Aiden couldn’t stop himself from gasping softly at the sudden drag of it. Emboldened, Jordi’s hand began to move slowly, teasingly, his mouth mapping out the shape of Aiden’s dick.

If Jordi’s tongue felt good, the inside of his mouth was pure sin—he’d minded the advice about teeth, folding his lips over them and carefully taking Aiden into his mouth. That he’d practiced was clear, his fist curled around the base of Aiden’s cock as he swallowed around the head and part of the shaft.

“Oh fuck,” Aiden hissed, his fingers tightening in Jordi’s hair. There was something utterly filthy in the way Jordi’s lips were stretched around him, his eyes half-shut as he concentrated on his task. On _Aiden_ , the way his cock rocked into the wet heat of Jordi’s mouth, the way he tasted and felt.

Jordi sucked and Aiden gasped, his hips lifting up off the sofa. Fuck, how long had it been since he’d gotten a blowjob? Most of his hookups preferred receiving to giving, and Aiden liked sucking dick too much to complain about it.

The hand wrapped around the base of his shaft slid further down, Jordi’s head bobbing lower as he took more of Aiden into his mouth. The pressure around him was electrifying, Jordi’s tongue wet and hungry against the underside of Aiden’s cock as his hips rocked again. The only thing keeping him from fucking up into Jordi’s mouth was the hand pressing hard against his stomach, keeping him in place on the couch.

Jordi’s fist moved, slick with drool as his throat closed around Aiden’s tip, and Aiden groaned, letting his head fall back again as he tugged at Jordi’s hair. “Fuck, _fuck_ yes, just like that. Just like that, Jordi, _fuck_.”

Between his thighs, Jordi moaned softly at the praise, the vibrations transferring directly into Aiden’s dick and straight up his spine. He swore again, biting his own lip before deliberately rolling his hips harder than he had before, burying himself deeper in Jordi’s throat. So fucking tight and so fucking _hot_ , like Jordi’s throat was made just for Aiden cock.

The hand on his stomach shoved down, hard, and Jordi pulled off his dick with a gasp. His cheeks were red, dark eyes slightly dazed as a string of saliva trailed from his lips to the flushed head of Aiden’s cock.

God, the things Aiden would do to have a picture of _that_.

“Well damn,” Jordi said, voice hoarse. The hand around Aiden’s cock jacked him a few times before sliding lower and fondling his balls. “You weren’t joking about the, uh, the choking thing.”

“You think?” Aiden breathed, licking his lips as he half-lifted his hips in a silent plea. If Jordi didn’t plan on going back to sucking, then the least he could do was finger Aiden.

“I’m gonna just go and grab the lube now.” Jordi sat up, shaking Aiden’s hand off before yanking his jeans all the way down to his ankles. “Don’t jerk off before I get back.”

“Fuck you.” Aiden kicked a few times, flinging the jeans off as soon as he could, and watched Jordi stumble upright and head to the bedroom, his slacks tenting around the hard line of his erection.

When Jordi didn’t come back immediately, Aiden wrapped his fingers around his own cock, rocking into his fist. The schoolwork abandoned on the coffee table was in the way, but he wasn’t motivated enough to move it—if Jordi didn’t bring back condoms, he would just have to deal with Aiden’s come on his cushions.

“What did I _just_ say?” Jordi asked a few seconds later, naked and hard, his dick bobbing as he strode back to the couch.

“You took too long and Aiden Junior got lonely,” Aiden said, unrepentant and already reaching to pull Jordi back down. His hands were pushed away, pinned up by his head as Jordi settled between his thighs, fat cock resting heavy over Aiden’s own.

“Did you really suck your own dick?” Jordi squeezed Aiden’s hands pointedly before leaving them against the cushions, his palms smoothing over Aiden’s thighs as he spread them wide. One knee was pushed up, hooked over Jordi’s shoulder as Jordi dumped lube on his hand.

“Want to watch sometime?” Aiden asked, pressing his cheek into his bicep and making a soft noise as Jordi pushed a finger up into him.

“Oh _fuck_ yes,” Jordi hissed, adding a second finger and grinning at the low groan Aiden made.

“Come on, I’m not made of glass, just put it in.” Biting his lip as he rocked into Jordi’s fingers, Aiden pushed a little bit of command into his voice. Between the look on Jordi’s face after having Aiden’s dick down his throat and the fingers in his ass now, he was going to go insane if he didn’t get some real stimulation soon.

“You need to learn how to take your time,” Jordi said, spreading his fingers wide to the sound of Aiden swearing. “You just go headfirst into stuff every time, maybe I’m _enjoying_ fingering you. Your ass is _tight_.”

“Then _fuck_ it already!” He reached a hand down to his own dick again and got it shoved back up against the cushions for his efforts, Jordi leaning in and taking advantage of how easy it was to bend Aiden in half.

“Someday I’m gonna just take you to pieces for hours, and it’s gonna be great. I ate a girl out for an entire afternoon once. You’d love it.” With _that_ mental image—Jordi on his knees, face buried between Aiden’s legs—stuck in his head now, Aiden let himself be manhandled a little more. Jordi finally pushed into him, slow and easy as the thick stretch made Aiden moan.

Fuck, he was never going to get over that first couple of seconds when Jordi thrusted into him. Every time it was like being blessed all over again, better than any other guy Aiden had managed to snag and thicker than the dildo he’d bought last year in a burst of loneliness. If he’d realized that straight playboys were actually _good_ at sex, he would’ve seduced one long before now.

Jordi’s forearm pinned Aiden’s wrists to the couch cushions, preventing him from grabbing at anything more substantial than the upholstery. His other hand roved, dragging over the sweat on Aiden’s thigh before thumbing at his nipple, never stopping for long as his hips rolled in a steady, unending rhythm. He had a _thing_ about keeping Aiden pinned down, got entirely too into the idea of wrestling another man down and then fucking him to assert dominance.

Right now, under the heady flex of Jordi’s muscles and the hard pounding thrusts, Aiden really couldn’t object to it.

“God _damn_ , Jordi,” he breathed, back arching as he panted into the hot air caught between them. Jordi’s fingers tightened on his hip, the muscles in his shoulders bunching as he shifted position and bent Aiden further, pushing his thigh up until it was pinned between their chests.

For a second, Aiden had the brainpower to worry about his hip sliding out of joint—and then Jordi was _there_ , was thrusting into him hard and fast, all pretense of tenderness thrown out the window. His voice caught on a desperate groan, nails dragging over the fabric on the couch as he pushed back into the thrusts as best he could.

And god, all he _could_ do was take it, let everything else fade away in favor of Jordi’s hands on him, Jordi’s cock in him, Jordi’s voice catching on a low, hungry noise that said he was close too.

It was the way Jordi whispered Aiden’s name like a prayer that finally sent him over the edge. He gasped, choked on a final moan that tore out of his throat, tightened around the thick length still buried inside of him as he came. The hard thrusts quickened before suddenly stilling, Jordi groaning low and deep as he came too.

They’d forgotten condoms. Not his problem, Aiden figured, with the pliant laziness of a well-earned orgasm. It was Jordi’s couch, not his.

Through the hazy warmth of his afterglow, Aiden felt Jordi shift and press his lips to the line of stubble on his cheek. His mouth slowly dragged up until it was resting just below Aiden’s ear, sending little shivers up his spine as Jordi whispered, “So now that you’re all nice and relaxed, let’s talk about the circulatory system.”

* * *

Marcus dropped a pair of sandwiches on the cafeteria table, then thunked a box of pizza next to them. The club sandwich was shoved towards Aiden, who unwrapped it and began to eat without shame, while the pizza was pushed towards Wrench’s empty chair. Clara was already halfway through her pasta bowl, pushing the corkscrew noodles around with her fork.

“Thanks man,” Aiden said around a mouthful of bread as Wrench arrived, setting sodas in front of all three of them.

“No problem. Turns out, I get a little punch card and a free sub for every one I buy, so _you_ just got me one sandwich closer to the sweet, sweet euphoria of a marketing scheme gone right.” Marcus grinned as he sat, stealing a pepperoni off of Wrench’s pizza before digging into his own sub. “We still doing game night on Friday?”

Aiden winced and swallowed, trying not to feel guilty about saying ‘no’. Hanging out with DedSec wasn’t regular outside of school breaks, so he never knew when he’d actually get another chance. Friday night was the most reliable for all of them, even with Josh and himself having a class just before.

“Midterms,” he said apologetically, popping the tab on his soda and waving the can vaguely towards the classrooms out of sight. “I’m heading straight to Jordi’s place to study after class.”

“Is that what the kids call it these days?” Clara murmured with a wicked smile, stealing a pepperoni from Wrench as well. He didn’t seem too invested in stopping them, turning his mask towards Aiden with question marks instead of eating.

“Jordi? Do we know a Jordi? Are you _dating_ someone, and you didn’t even have them ask us for your hand in marriage first?” The question marks turned into gleeful carets as Marcus socked him in the shoulder, and Wrench finally lifted the mask to start eating.

“Okay, first of all: not dating—”

“He said, like a liar,” Clara interjected again.

“ _Second_ ,” Aiden said, glaring at her and pointing with the hand unencumbered by sandwich, “he’s in a couple of my classes and he’s smart enough to get me an A if I can just figure out _how_ he keeps all that information in his stupid head. Anatomy is kicking my ass otherwise, and Intro to Anthropology is on thin fucking ice.”

Marcus pursed his lips thoughtfully before wiping his fingers on a napkin and popping his own soda open. “Jordi, like, Chin? Tallish asian dude, usually wearing a nice shirt?”

“Wait, _you_ know a Jordi? What other torrid secrets have you been keeping from me, Marcus?” Wrench pulled his mask down long enough to put on the affectation of a wounded lover, then snickered when Marcus just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Shut up dude, the only torrid secrets I have are all Ridley Scott related and you _know_ it. Man’s in my Feminism in Film class. Sitara’s not sure if she hates him or loves him.” Marcus shrugged and went back to his sandwich.

“Seems to be going around,” said Clara, before laughing when Aiden kicked her under the table. “Alright, alright, désolé. I’ll stop. Feminism in Film, though?”

“I needed an elective and it was either the film class with Sit or Wrench’s weird Master Guitarist Through The Ages capstone course. And I love you, man, you know that, but no. Not having the lit teacher go on about dead white guys at me again.” Marcus patted Wrench on the arm with all the insincere sympathy of a paid actor before stealing another pepperoni.

“You took both the Classical English and Classical American lit classes with me when you didn’t have to, you’re completely off the hook,” Wrench said amicably after pulling his mask back down. “Steal another pepperoni and I’m divorcing you though.”

“Is he obnoxious in the class?” Aiden asked, unable to help himself. He didn’t know what Jordi’s major was, and he couldn’t make a _film class_ fit in his head. The guy was clearly not in any of the IT tracks though, and if he was in Aiden’s basic English Comp class, he wasn’t an English major either.

“Obnoxious? Nah.” Marcus tipped his head thoughtfully, popping the last bite of his sub in his mouth and swallowing before he continued. “Well, maybe a bit. He’s just really _into it_ , I guess? Sitara’s more into the artsy film crowd, has a lot of thoughts about how indie film directors treat women’s bodies as a canvas or whatever. The class is more focused on the mainstream right now though, and he and the professor got into a thirty minute discussion about regional soap operas and the way they reflect regional ideals for women. To be honest, I couldn’t follow it after the first five minutes.”

That—no, that fit, actually. Aiden had seen the box sets of General Hospital and Days Of Our Lives on Jordi’s media stand, but he’d assumed it was… ironic, or something. Maybe leftovers from a previous rich housewife tenant, since Jordi was ‘slumming it’ (whatever the fuck _that_ meant to him) and Aiden assumed that included renting instead of buying. He’d been assuming a lot of things, actually, and it was unsettling to find out that some of them weren’t true.

Was Jordi this passionate about all movies? If he was getting a degree in film, why the fuck was he doing it at a community college? There were art schools he could definitely afford to go to instead.

“Weird,” said Wrench, reflecting Aiden’s thoughts. “Have you gotten to the part in class where you get to point out the Alien films pass the bechdel test?”

“I’m keeping that one in my back pocket,” Marcus said dryly, crumpling his trash and dropping it in Wrench’s empty pizza box.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was so hard not to have Jordi say, “Weird flex but okay,” in here. _So hard._

Somehow, Jordi’s stupid fucking study plan actually _worked_. If Aiden had to suffer with a halfie for the whole exam period, at least he finished the questions with a lot more confidence than he could ever have dreamed of.

For once, he didn’t dread the grades coming out.

* * *

“I don’t get why it’s such a problem, man,” came the whiny tones of Maurice wheedling for… something, from Dusan. Probably another reduction in rent. The argument had grown loud enough to wake Aiden a few minutes ago, but they’d dropped their voices again.

Not far enough.

He sat up and squinted at the screen of his phone, noting the time. If it was nearly two in the morning, then Dusan was _probably_ drunk and Maurice _definitely_ was. That was the only reason either of them stayed up past eleven—usually Aiden was the last one in bed, just like he was one of the first to rise. He preferred it that way.

“You think you can just push me around and I won’t notice? _Abby_ has been angling for the master for three months, and if _Abby_ wants it, _Abby_ can pay.” Dusan’s voice was lower than Maurice’s, still carrying through the thin walls but just muted enough that Aiden could probably have ignored it if he were still asleep.

“You don’t charge Aiden this much! Come on, man!”

Fuck. Aiden rolled, pulling the covers over his head, and dragged his phone into the dubious safety of them as well. If they were both drunk and going at it, then he didn’t want his name in the mix. So far he’d kept himself from picking a side, but shit was coming to a head.

A text to Clara got no reply. The DedSec chat server was dead too—all of them had been partying that night, Aiden included, celebrating the end of midterms. Sitara had offered him her couch for the night, but he’d turned her down because he’d barely been buzzed. Clearly, that had been a mistake.

Maurice’s voice grew louder again, carrying through the cloth barrier Aiden tried to erect over himself.

His thumb hovered over Jordi’s contact in his phone. All of the texts between them had been perfunctory on Aiden’s end, requests for restaurant addresses or establishing meetup times. Jordi’s were more eclectic, some of them professional and some of them just casual observations. There were at least three gym selfies, all of them saved in a folder on Aiden’s phone he’d deny ever creating if pressed.

It was two fifteen in the morning now. There was no hint that the two of them would let up. Was Abigail even home right now?

Probably not. No, wait—her father was sick, that was right. She’d left yesterday afternoon to go back to her parents’ house and check up on them for a week. That was the reason Maurice was having a go at Dusan, Aiden bet; as laconic as the guy could be, he was rabid in his defense of his girlfriend. If Dusan said something about her, and she wasn’t around to reign Maurice in, and they were both drunk…

His name came up again, spat with vitriol from Dusan this time, “Unlike _you_ two Aiden’s actually fucking responsible. When was the last time you moved your ass off the couch, Maurice? Can’t handle being a grown up unless you’re selling drugs?”

He dragged a pillow over his head and opened up the text conversation. No likelihood that Jordi would be up, but he could ask anyways. Play it off as being horny and still tipsy, just looking for some fun. Celebrating.

It was what he’d been doing earlier, after all. There was no lie more believable than the one that was basically truth.

The text message noise startled him, shockingly loud in the hissing quiet of the argument shifting subject again. He nearly threw his phone in a panic, only catching himself because Jordi was sending another text, inviting him over. An offer of refuge, even if Jordi didn’t know that was what Aiden was looking for.

“Fucking thank you,” he breathed, pressing the hard edge of his phone to his forehead. Sleeping his way into a quiet place to crash wasn’t anything new for him. At least he already knew where Jordi lived.

There was the thud of someone slamming into the coffee table, but no wet sound of flesh on flesh to indicate one of them throwing a punch. He dragged on an undershirt, hastily wrapping his wrists and ankles, pulling the soft braces onto his knees as silently as he could. The cold fall nights weren’t worth risking a fall in, so he couldn’t afford to go without them—he could make up an excuse for Jordi. Maybe just refuse to get undressed in the same room or something. Maybe—ha—maybe just admit that his joints weren’t doing too hot in this weather right now.

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. He’d get undressed in the bathroom.

He yanked his sweater on over his head to the sound of Dusan swearing, tied his shoes to the dull clatter of bottles hitting a hard surface, and grabbed his jacket on the way out of his bedroom, wallet and phone safely stowed in his pockets. They didn’t even notice him, too focused on drunkenly snarling at each other over the mess of glass and beer on the living room floor.

The front door softly clicked shut behind him. His breath frosted up when he trotted down the steps to his car, one of the streetlights on his block flickering as the bulb threatened to fail. Already the cold was eating into him, numbing his left arm with a white-hot ache that spelled bad things for his manual dexterity later.

Bitterly, he wondered if his dad was proud of that. Bastard probably didn’t even think about him anymore.

It took the car a minute to warm up, and he texted Jordi that he was on his way. The emojis he got in response were a small light in the darkness, a little bit of color that still did nothing to eat away at the grey that had wrapped around him from the moment Maurice’s voice woke him up.

* * *

Jordi’s hands smoothed over his back, lazy and sloppy in the aftermath of rough sex. Their mouths kept finding each other, Aiden’s tongue darting between Jordi’s lips with an eagerness that was all too real, one hand buried in the mop of Jordi’s hair. The condo was warm enough that they didn’t need more than the thin sheet draped over them, sticking to the sweat cooling on his skin.

His fingertips were numb on his left arm, but that wasn’t anything new. Shifts in the weather were always a mixed bag like that.

“So is this a one-off, or are you staying the night?” Jordi asked when they finally broke apart long enough to breathe.

“Staying the night,” Aiden said, pressing into the heat pouring off of Jordi’s body. God, the man was a furnace sometimes. It’d be miserable in the summer, but with winter coming up, he couldn’t help wanting to be close.

“Mm, that’s a treat. Did well on your midterms, then?” Jordi’s grin was bright and wicked, his palm smoothing over Aiden’s hip and lingering on the curve of it.

“Eighty-three.” A smirk tugged at his own lips, the fight in his apartment shoved back in a box he wouldn’t have to look in. “Highest grade I’ve gotten on anything that that class, honestly.”

“Look at _you_ ,” Jordi breathed, leaning in to kiss him again as he half-rolled them both. Aiden felt his hip slide out, ache chasing up his leg as he tightened his fingers in Jordi’s hair and kept him close.

The palm curled over his hip rubbed into it, pressing into the sudden gap between pelvis and femur, and Jordi pulled away without warning, brow furrowing.

“What?” Aiden went to tug Jordi back down again and frowned at the unexpected resistance.

“Do I need to take you to a hospital? Is this—this isn’t normal, is it?” There was a hint of something very like panic in Jordi’s voice, his hand still rubbing nervously at the divot of Aiden’s hip joint.

Shit.

“Hey no—it’s fine, Jordi.” He shifted, pressed his heel to the mattress and rolled the joint back into the place, the dull ache disappearing as soon as everything was where it should be. The motion didn’t do anything to make Jordi panic less. “Seriously, it’s just a thing that happens.”

“Uh, ha ha, no, no it sure the fuck does _not_ ,” Jordi said, his palms moving fretfully over Aiden’s hips and stomach now. It would have been kind of sexy if it weren’t for the fact that it was annoying instead.

“It does with me.” Aiden sighed and sat up, grabbing one of Jordi’s hands and putting it to his shoulder. It felt like there was a stormfront moving through, and without any tape or bandages securing it in place, his shoulder was free to move further than it should. “Here, feel this.”

“I really don’t want to, actually.” There was a grimace on Jordi’s face, but the panic seemed to be fading at least. His fingers were incredibly gentle where they curled around the ball of his shoulder, dipping into the divot of the socket easily when Aiden rolled it deliberately out of joint.

“Just a thing that happens,” he repeated.

“How have I _not_ noticed this before?” Jordi’s fingers were growing bolder, exploratory, gliding over Aiden’s collarbone and down his arm with curiosity instead of the usual sexual intent. It was odd, being the focus of that kind of attention. Aiden wasn’t used to people being _interested_ in him beyond his skills in bed.

“I mean, you did. You just chalked it up to me being flexible, didn’t you?” Aiden quirked an eyebrow up, flexing his elbow backwards to an alarmed and disgusted noise from Jordi. “All of ‘em do this. My left arm’s a little stiffer than my right, and my right knee’s a little stronger than my left. I usually wrap them if they’re getting dangerously loose.”

He watched the thoughts cross over Jordi’s face, keen interest followed by a calculating look that finally turned into an expression of dawning realization. Jordi was probably one of the most expressive men he’d ever met, and it was fascinating to watch him emote. Aiden caught himself wanting to smooth the line between Jordi’s brows and buried the urge deep where it couldn’t get him in trouble.

“That’s the reason you went and got undressed without me, huh?” Jordi murmured, his hand finally coming up to cup the curve of Aiden’s jaw.

He made a low noise of agreement, pressing his face into the warmth of Jordi’s palm. No point in trying to hide it now. “Most people freak out if they see the braces. It’s just easier to go without them, ignore all the questions.”

“Uh-huh. So you dislocated your leg at me instead. _Real_ subtle.” The pad of Jordi’s thumb dragged over the stubble on Aiden’s cheek, scraping softly as Jordi leaned in close.

“It’s not like I did it on _purpose_ ,” Aiden said, his breath ghosting over Jordi’s lips. He didn’t get a chance to say anything more, Jordi’s mouth sealing over his as their bodies pressed close.

He let himself be pushed back into the mattress again, Jordi’s hands gentle as they fitted over Aiden’s ribs, smoothing down the muscles in his sides. His own hands weren’t as kind, grabbing at the swell of Jordi’s biceps, dragging blunt nails over the thick muscle in his back. If he had to convince Jordi that he wasn’t fragile by fucking the hell out of him, then Aiden was going to ride him all the way down to the lowest circle.

One hand buried itself in Jordi’s hair again, Aiden’s lips parting for the tentative press of Jordi’s tongue. The hesitancy in Jordi’s grip pissed him off at the same time it ignited something soft and warm in his chest. Since he didn’t know what to do with the second feeling, Aiden embraced the first, biting Jordi’s lower lip as he yanked at the thick black locks between his fingers.

Jordi hissed softly in pain, then shoved Aiden back harder, pushing his thighs apart with absolutely no tenderness. The hands on Aiden’s hips dug in with a vengeance, bit into the skin there and then dragged down over his thighs.

“You wouldn’t believe the things I can do in bed,” Aiden breathed, his grip in Jordi’s hair keeping the man close. A spark of lust brightened Jordi’s dark eyes, his cheeks going ruddy as his hips rolled against Aiden’s. “You think bending me in half is hot? There’s no position I can’t fuck in.”

“Jesus, that’s a hell of a brag,” Jordi said, a soft gasp catching at the end of his words when Aiden wrapped his legs around his waist.

The blunt head of Jordi’s swelling cock caught the edge of Aiden’s hole, still slick with lube and Jordi’s come. He rocked his hips up into it, wrapped his arms tight around Jordi’s neck so he couldn’t escape. Like this, Jordi had no choice but to give it to him exactly the way Aiden wanted.

“Wait until you see how many dicks I can fit in my mouth.” Aiden grinned with feral excitement at the low groan Jordi made, the way his hips stuttered and then drove forward with a hard thrust that buried him deep inside of Aiden. “ _Fuck_ , yes, c’mon—”

“So fucking _demanding_ ,” Jordi groaned into Aiden’s neck, catching the skin there between his teeth. It dragged a gasp out of Aiden, his hands clenching in Jordi’s hair and driving him down.

He’d been roughed up in bed before, manhandled by guys with more weight to them, but nothing like this. Nothing like Jordi’s mouth leaving bruises up and down his neck and Jordi’s nails biting into the skin of his thighs as he fucked into Aiden with fast, pounding thrusts. And—

His hips threatened to go out, but before he could gasp anything more coherent than Jordi’s name, the other man shifted his grip and hauled him closer to support them properly.

That shift was what he needed, angling Jordi’s cock so that it was a sharp burst of pleasure with every thrust. Aiden’s nails dug into Jordi’s scalp, his breath coming in desperate pants as he arched back and let himself _go_ , just let himself ride the swelling wave of pleasure Jordi was fucking into him. Lightning caught in his toes, arched down his spine, built under his skin until the only thing Aiden could do was sob Jordi’s name and finally tip over the edge.

Jordi’s voice caught on a low, hungry moan, hips stuttering as he slammed himself all the way in and came, his hands gripping Aiden’s ass tight. The tension bled out of them both slowly, until Aiden’s legs were lazily entwined with Jordi’s and Jordi’s mouth was hunting his out again.

“You know,” Jordi finally said after a long couple of minutes of kissing, “my birthday’s coming up soon. You could show me that cocksucking trick of yours then.”

With a low, rusty chuckle, Aiden committed the thought to memory. Easy to ignore the painful tingle in his left hand’s fingers when the rest of him was so well used—and all too easy to forget why he’d despised Jordi in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, technically, a two-chapter update. 8 was uploaded earlier this morning.
> 
> Also, for those of you curious about what the _hell_ is going on with Aiden’s joints, he’s got Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is a collagen disorder marked by hypermobility and certain other features (exceptionally soft skin, long fingers and limbs shared with Marfan Syndrome, long-term chronic pain that’s often triggered by a traumatic event.)
> 
> _Aiden_ doesn’t know this, because Aiden hasn’t seen a specialist ever, but, well. I figured it’s worth mentioning, since the dumb idiot subluxates his hip pretty badly here.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags updated with some more stuff that’s going to be more relevant in the next *checks outline* four chapters, give or take. Also this one’s kind of short and kind of jumpy, but it’s necessary for the level of fuckery I’m about to dump in Aiden’s lap.
> 
> :)

Clara’s shoulder was warm against his when she leaned against him, her legs kicked up over the edge of the loveseat in the school cafe. Most of the time they grabbed a table instead, but all of _those_ were claimed by frantic students finally feeling the crunch. With midterms gone and finals coming up, everyone’s essays and class projects were coming due too.

He had about seven pages of kidney discussion written up. If his ever failed, Aiden hoped they let him die on the table instead of replacing them. The last thing he ever wanted to think about again was kidneys.

“You seem happier with Jordi around,” said Clara thoughtfully, swirling her latte with a coffee stick.

Well. The second to last thing.

“I’m not,” Aiden said with instinctive denial. He refused to be. The idea of _enjoying Jordi’s company_ filled him with a certain creeping dread that he didn’t want to examine too closely.

“Last semester, you were three seconds from a meltdown this close to finals.” She raised an eyebrow, tucking her cheek against his shoulder and pursing her lips. “I thought you might actually drive off a bridge.”

“Summer semesters are a whole different beast,” he informed her, a little more sourly than he’d meant to. It was amazing how much a difference the extra month of school made between the regular spring/fall semesters and the hellish cramming of summer. Never again. Never fucking again.

Clara made a noise of disagreement, bouncing one foot idly as a middle aged woman across the cafe started swearing at her laptop. It probably made them bad soon-to-be IT professionals that neither of them got up to help but—well, it’s not like they’d be getting paid for it. And a younger man was already leaning over to see what she was complaining about.

Her finger slowly slid down his neck, dipping just below the collar of his sweater before she pulled her hand back. “Well, you can at least admit you’re having fun, right? I mean, no one gives _me_ hickies like that.”

Aiden choked, coughed a couple times before sipping at his coffee to try and hide his expression. From the soft, satisfied little laugh Clara made, he wasn’t as good at hiding as he’d hoped.

“It’s…” He struggled to find a word, frowning down at his cup, before finally sighing and admitting defeat. “It’s complicated, okay? You remember my two date rule?”

“The one you already broke?” she asked, leaning harder against him as she lifted her latte up to sip at it.

“Yeah.” With a grimace, Aiden silently acknowledged that his problem had started about the same time he’d let lust overwhelm his good sense in that bar. Even if Jordi was in all his classes, he wouldn’t be in this spot without breaking that rule first.

She let him silently brood over there for a few more seconds before tapping her nail against the side of her cup and clearing her throat. “So, tell me about your two date rule, Aiden.”

“Ugh. It’s like this: if I don’t fuck someone more than once, I don’t have to worry about… expectations. Things that the other person wants from me, things that I want from them. It’s just sex and nothing more than that, and I don’t _owe_ them anything. And that’s just easier, you know? I’ve done the relationship thing and it’s just not really my _thing_.”

Clara made a neutral, thoughtful noise before twisting in the loveseat, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and slinging her legs across his lap. There was barely enough warning for him to move his coffee out of the way and Aiden gave her a dirty look for that, but she was utterly unrepentant.

“I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself,” she declared, gulping down a mouthful of coffee. “I don’t think you’re being honest with _me_ either, but that’s not nearly as important. After all, you’re here with me, aren’t you? And you’re coming to game night this week. _That_ is expectations and obligations too, no? So how is it different with the men you fuck?”

With a groan, Aiden thunked his head back against the wall. His other arm snaked around her back, kept her sitting upright even as he slouched further. Clara had a point—of course she did, Clara always had a point—but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it. “It’s just different.”

She downed the rest of her coffee, leaning forward to set her empty cup on the low table with their bags, then propped her chin on one hand and stared at him. “Then explain it to me.”

“Well, you don’t want my dick anywhere near you for one,” he said with a faint smile at her disgusted noise. “I don’t know. He’s an asshole, and I really don’t need to encourage that. He’s nice to me, in his own bizarro fucking way, so that makes me like him. I really don’t _want_ to like him, because he’s an asshole, and because I’m still not sure if I’m his… I don’t know, rich kid mistake? The guy he’s slumming with until he figures out women are easier and runs off to get married to an heiress or something?”

_That_ idea hurt. It hurt a lot, now that he’d scraped the mud off and uncovered it, buried deep in his heart where he couldn’t see it. The idea that he could stupidly hand his heart over if he wasn’t careful, and the best he’d get for it was Jordi’s baffled amusement and faint disgust at the trappings of poverty, that if he let himself open up again it would only end in pain.

‘Neat,’ his nightmare Jordi said, setting the cracked and broken thing from Aiden’s chest in a curio cabinet. ‘Do you think I can get a vintage diner coffee cup to go next to it?’

Jesus. He dragged a hand over his face and stuffed that all down, trying to forget how close to real that concept was. Hadn’t Jordi agreed with him when Aiden made it clear that this was just for fun? Hadn’t Jordi been the one to arrange for casual sex without anything else attached?

He was an idiot if he thought _Jordi_ wanted him the way that Aiden thought he might want Jordi.

“I wish I had something better to say, something that could help,” Clara said, voice wistful. Her finger trailed over the edge of his jaw, loving and completely platonic, no matter what it looked like from the outside.

“Yeah.” He sighed and shut his eyes. “Yeah, me too.”

* * *

Journals, journals, textbooks, something that was probably a journal too… Aiden hunted through the online catalog in the library, inspecting the publishing dates on everything. He needed something relatively recent for this Anthropology paper, because he was going to have to cite _everything_ and the damn paper was supposed to be four pages long. Four goddamn pages.

Ugh. Not something he could rely on Jordi for either. Not that he should be relying on Jordi at _all_ , midterm results be damned. Aiden should know better by now than to let himself get too attached to what was, he had to keep reminding himself, _an absolute_ _asshole_.

It didn’t matter if Jordi was good at sex, and willing to help him study, and didn’t treat Aiden like some kind doll to be protected. Every _other_ part of his personality was still that of an unrepentant, overprivileged dick (including, Aiden thought with a guilty jolt, his dick.) It was stepping into a bear trap. It was getting _shoved_ into a bear trap by fate and the capricious will of a professor with a sadistic streak.

It wasn’t… fun. He wasn’t enjoying it.

God, even in his own head it sounded like a lie. What was _wrong_ with him?

He didn’t realize he’d been staring at the same page for several minutes until someone cleared their throat behind him. With a startled jump, he turned to sheepishly apologize for hogging a computer, then paused. The person standing behind his chair didn’t seem interested in the computer—there were two empty ones on either side of him.

She was a shorter woman, her black hair tucked under a red beanie. The strap on her side satchel was decorated in patches and pins, a few that were clearly counterculture and a few calling to hacker culture, but notably none that indicated allegiance to DedSec. He’d gotten used to assuming all the hacktivist kids on campus being part of that group, so meeting someone who _wasn’t_ was weird. She wasn’t in any of his classes either.

“Can I help you?” he asked, memorizing her face for later. Aiden couldn’t think of any reasons for her to hunt _him_ down, but maybe he’d run into her in a club or something. Hopefully she wasn’t here to ask him out or something.

“You hang out with the rest of the script kiddies, right?” she asked, cool as a cucumber and three times as condescending as Jordi at his worst. What was _with_ people at this college thinking they were superior to him? They were all scrabbling on the ground with the rest of the high school dropouts.

“Uh, I’m friends with a couple other IT majors, but they’re not script kiddies.” If for no reason than because Josh dragged their average intelligence much higher. He was pretty sure all of them wrote their own code, though.

“Mm, sure,” she said, obviously not buying it. “Well, I don’t want to join your little Anonymous fanclub, but I do want you to pass on a message. Think you can do that for me?”

“Are you going to give me an actual reason, or are you just going to keep negging me and hoping your quirky manic pixie grunge girl vibe turns me straight?” Aiden asked, unable to stop the annoyance leaking into his voice.

Perversely, she laughed, digging in her pocket for a slip of paper. “Alright, yeah, I deserved that. I’m not a fan of groups. Kind of a lone wolf. But I can’t get BadBoy17 alone without making a production of it, so can you give her this note _please_? Cherry on top.”

He didn’t reach for the paper immediately, eyeing her hard instead. Clara’s screen name in the chat server had come as a surprise to him, apparently a remnant of her ill-spent youth, but hearing someone refer to her by it in real life was an even nastier surprise. The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally out her.

“What’s in it for me?” he asked, eyes narrowed.

“I’ll owe you a favor.” Her dark eyes bored into him, eyeliner painted on sharp and crisp. “I don’t really like owing people favors, so that’s a pretty big deal.”

He grimaced, but finally took the slip of paper. It had been folded twice and neatly taped shut, no address or name on the outside to indicate where it was coming from. “And who am I giving her the note from?”

She smiled. “An old friend. You can call me Cr0w.”

* * *

This was stupid. He knew it was stupid, because looking up the guy on the school portal and confirming his birth date—which was a _massive_ security hole, incidentally, and the part of his brain planning to work in IT cringed at it every time he remembered it existed—was a weird thing to do when they weren’t even dating. Maybe even if they _were_ dating.

God, what the fuck was wrong with him.

Neither Abigail nor Dusan had a mixer, and Aiden didn’t own anything that couldn’t fit in two suitcases, which made this a little more difficult. Not impossible, even if beating the eggs by hand with a fork wasn’t his idea of a good time, but difficult. He’d discarded a few other idea because of it too—making whipped cream or frosting from scratch was a pain without a mixer. Pie, though. Didn’t need a mixer to make a proper pie crust.

It was his first time working with gluten free flour, but the all-in-one blend he’d picked up seemed reliable enough. The mixture felt like real flour and it acted like real flour, though he’d eyeballed its consistency and then added an egg in for better binding. It was off the recipe, but who was going to know?

With the eggs properly brutalized into submission, he began to pour in the maple syrup and brown sugar, then the combination of butter and vanilla in a single bowl to cut down on dishes. He hadn’t even asked if Jordi had a nut allergy too. Did he have a fucking nut allergy too? Did pecans even count in a nut allergy?

Wait, no. He’d watched Jordi scarf down a Snickers before class, so peanut allergy was out. And if there was anything else on the list that he was allergic to, he’d have lorded it over Aiden’s head by now.

Before he could overthink things, he poured the cup of pecans into the bowl, folding it all together until it was well mixed. The oven beeped softly to indicate it was preheated as he pulled the pie shell out of the fridge, the dough chilled but still smooth and uncracked. A little bit of tightness in his chest eased as he poured the filling into it—he’d been worried that the gluten free flour would fight back.

“I didn’t know you could bake,” said Maurice without warning as Aiden pushed the pie into the oven.

He did _not_ jerk back and slam the back of his hand into the top three-hundred and fifty degree oven, but it was a very near thing. Aiden did swear softly as he shut the door, then shot Maurice a dirty look. His roommate had the good sense to at least look a little guilty about it.

“Never really felt the need to around here,” Aiden told him, which wasn’t a lie. Frankly, with finals looming, he shouldn’t be baking _now_ , but. His priorities had a shitty way of rearranging while he wasn’t looking.

“Yeah, guess not.” Maurice shifted from foot to foot for a couple seconds, obviously uncomfortable, then blurted out, “You, uh, you didn’t overhear me and the Douche last week, did…?”

“I did.” The apartment had gone from a wary armistice to the chilly, quiet fury of Cold War relations by the time Aiden had gotten back from Jordi’s place. When Abigail got back three days later, relations hadn’t improved any.

There was a churning, angry anxiety low in Aiden’s gut, the promise of violence tight in the air. He couldn’t tell if that was just him reading into things, though. For all that Maurice was a shitty roommate in almost every way imaginable, he was also a wet blanket when it came to violence. Dusan… Aiden wasn’t so sure about Dusan. But no punches had been thrown yet.

He almost wished they had been, just to cut through the tension that infested the air where he lived. Aiden had pulled in a chunk of money this week just because he was too reluctant to head home to sleep.

“Well, uh, I appreciate you not telling Abby anything,” Maurice stumbled over the words, rubbing the back of his neck and not meeting Aiden’s eyes. “We’re going up to see her folks for Thanksgiving but she’s gotta be back down that evening for Black Friday, so… We’ll be gone a couple days before then. You’ll get a little better sleep, right?”

Aiden thought about leaving him hanging, but the pie would take about forty minutes to bake and he _really_ didn’t want Maurice hovering outside the kitchen the whole time. “Yeah, it’ll be nice. Have fun up there. Tell her folks hi from me.”

“Will do, man.” Maurice slunk out without anything resembling an apology.

Aiden tried his hardest to pretend like the ground wasn’t crumbling under his feet.

* * *

Jordi’s birthday was November 23rd, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and he was turning twenty four. Maurice and Abigail were planning on leaving that Monday, and Aiden had no intention of being around to see them off, not when the apartment still felt too small for all four of them.

Instead, he’d taken his pecan pie and his backpack for school down to the car. If he just avoided wearing clothes for the entire weekend, he wouldn’t have to worry about smelling on Monday. Given how often he and Jordi found themselves without clothes anyways, that probably wouldn’t be too hard.

Besides, they had the project to finish up. It was due on Wednesday, because their teacher was a sadist, and their finals were a week after that.

The security guard manning the front desk of Jordi’s condo smiled at him when Aiden came forward for a guest pass, writing the plate number and car model down before Aiden even got to the counter. He signed off on it with his left hand, still juggling his pie in the right, and tried to smile without feeling like a class traitor.

“Gonna be staying a couple nights. Is that cool?” he asked.

“Not a problem at all,” the man answered easily, hitting the button to call the elevators for him. “As long as you’re out by Tuesday, since that’s when all the guest rooms are getting rented. Parking’s going to be a little tight with the holiday.”

“Yeah, well, that won’t be an issue. Hope you get time off to spend with your family.” Aiden swung around the desk, the guard’s cheerful response filtering in from behind him. The elevator doors opened and he punched the button for Jordi’s floor.

He’d texted Jordi to tell him that he was coming over, but that didn’t mean Jordi was actually _expecting_ him. Aiden hadn’t wished him a happy birthday over text, thinking it might be cheap, and now he was wondering if that was a mistake. Would Jordi even want to see him after a slight like that? Would Jordi even _care_?

Fuck, he hated this. This is why they weren’t dating. He refused to inflict this kind of anxiety on himself on a constant basis.

By the time he knocked on Jordi’s door, Aiden had half-convinced himself to leave and never come back. It was too late to pull out now, after he’d roped himself into this course of action, but it was incredibly tempting to pull out nonetheless. If Jordi didn’t answer in the next thirty seconds, he was leaving.

The door swung open, Jordi’s eyes red rimmed with exhaustion or—Aiden’s thoughts stuttered to a halt at the idea of Jordi actually being _upset_ over something. Fuck. Fuck. He should have wished him a happy birthday over text. Fuck. He’d fucked up.

“What?” Jordi asked, squinting at the pie in Aiden’s hand.

“I made you a pie for your birthday,” Aiden blurted, feeling himself go red at the clumsiness of his delivery. “It’s gluten free. Uh. Happy birthday.”

Jordi, thank god, did not look angry. He looked mostly confused, taking the pecan pie with an expression of bafflement before stepping back. “How the hell did you know when my birthday was?”

“Uh, you told me it was soon, so I looked it up in the school database.” Aiden let his bag slip off his shoulder, dumping all his school supplies by the couch where they always worked. Since Jordi was heading for the kitchen and regarding his pie like a ticking time bomb, Aiden followed him.

“You know that’s kind of creepy, right?” Jordi set it down on the counter as he hunted out a knife.

“It’s occured to me,” Aiden said, trying not to let on how much he was dying inside. _This_ was why he didn’t do relationships. This right here. He honestly wanted the earth to open up and swallow him whole because sentimentality was more vulnerable and humiliating than the most depraved sex acts ever could be.

“Creepy in a cute way though.” He cut himself a small slice, using a rinsed fork from the sink to get a bite. His eyebrows shot up, and then he was going for another piece, cutting a much bigger slice this time. “Holy shit. You can _bake_?”

Some of the burning embarrassment began to ease and Aiden let himself relax enough to lean against the counter. “Yeah. Started when I was little, and I got pretty good at it in my teens. I was a little rusty making this though, so if the crust isn’t great…”

“Fuck off, it’s amazing,” Jordi said, shoving another bite in his mouth. His other hand snaked out, yanked Aiden by his belt loops until he was close enough for Jordi to press a hard, closed-mouth kiss to his lips. “A fucking pie! No one’s ever made me a pie before.”

“Yeah, well. I saw how excited you got over the ravioli and it got me thinking.” He reached down to steal a bite of his own, making a satisfied hum at the flavor—rich and sweet, without any of the cloying sugary taste of something stuffed with artificial sweeteners. The pie shell could probably have used more sugar, but he’d just keep that in mind for the next time.

A warm, fond flutter of _something_ settled in his chest at the way Jordi was digging in, and Aiden quashed it as soon as he realized what it was.

“I’m also here to bribe you into helping me finish this paper,” he said, “because I’ve done all the work so far. I am willing and ready to use sex as a motivator.”

Jordi laughed, wiping crumbs out of his mustache. “Yeah okay, you’ve done enough by now. I can do a final look over for grammar and add in enough filler to bounce over the page count—you’ll still get a good three-quarters of the percentage points anyways.”

“Wait, what?”

“I made you do all the work so you’d have it in your head for the final,” Jordi said, shooting Aiden an infinitely smug look. “Not only that, it means we’ll both be honest on our peer reviews, and she said that points are allocated based on percentage worked. Therefore, _you’ll_ get a higher grade because _you_ did all the work.”

He stared, because the other option was throttling Jordi, and Aiden was of the opinion that a man deserved to have a birthday without getting throttled. This whole goddamn time, Jordi had been planning on making Aiden do all the work and… not swoop in for credit. Like a motherfucker. A motherfucker who was _right_ , because the final had an entire section on the urinary function of the body and Aiden knew it by heart now.

“You son of a bitch,” he breathed, not sure if he was angry or in awe.

“You’re welcome,” Jordi told him, shoving another bite of pie in his mouth.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Family holidays chapter! Family holidays are not great for Aiden.
> 
> So, warnings: super toxic family dynamics, abuse (both historical and in the present) including an ineffective attempt at gaslighting, and the very poorly considered but also understandable decision to drink his problems away, with the expected results.

When the order came in, Aiden did a sharp double-take at the address. He was further west and north than usual, sure, but he hadn’t thought he was close enough to pick up an order from Aunt Kathleen’s house. More fool he was for thinking that—maybe the other drivers were occupied closer to the city proper.

Aiden accepted it, because he could use the money and the order had already been paid for by card. He drove to the ice cream shop, grimacing in commiseration with the workers behind the counter as he rattled off the order. They didn’t look any happier to be there on Thanksgiving than he did, so he left a couple dollars as a tip in apology.

Then, once he was in the car, he texted Nicky that he would be over there in about five minutes. He didn’t reply to the flurry of texts she sent in response, carefully navigating up to his aunt’s house with the ease of long familiarity and the bitterness of old wounds.

Nicky met him at the front door, her hug tight and desperate when he got there. It’d been weeks since the last time he’d gotten a chance to steal her away, and even if this was a mistake, it was a mistake worth making.  It would always be a mistake worth making when it meant he could wrap his arms around her and press his cheek to her hair.

“Why do you have a delivery bag?” she asked, looking down.

“Thank fuck, ice cream’s here!” boomed one of the cousins a second later, yanking the door open. The close-cropped beard and scar over his oft-broken nose said it was George, and the man’s eyes narrowed as he spotted the delivery driver hugging his teenage female cousin. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

“Your cousin?” Aiden said dryly, hefting his bag up and digging the ice cream out. He’d put himself off duty as soon as he’d told the app that the food was delivered to avoid getting another order in while dealing with this.

Even if he hadn’t alerted Nicky, there was no way he would have gotten out of this without a hassle. It stung though, hearing George talking about him like he was a stranger. Just because he hadn’t been to any of the family holidays in five years—whose fault was that? Not Aiden’s, that’s for damn sure. He would have come in a heartbeat if he was allowed, the rest of the family be damned.

For Nicky, he would have come. Because it would cause too much trouble for her if he did, he’d stayed away.

George snatched the bags of takeout from him with a suspicious glare, then turned and bellowed into the house, “Aiden’s here!”

“Shit,” he and Nicky said simultaneously.

“Might as well come in,” George muttered, opening the bags and double checking that everything was right. “Not like Mama will let you go now that you’re here. Pretty fucking rude of you to show up after all these years without even a ‘hello’ though.”

He stomped off after that cryptic remark, ice cream in hand. Aiden’s arm tightened around Nicky, then he sighed and looked down. She hadn’t been crying—that was good—but the pinched, worried look on her face spoke volumes. Both of them had every reason to hate being here.

“You okay?” Aiden asked gently.

“Emily’s here,” Nicky said instead of answering, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “and she said she’d lend me a couple books. I guess she’s going to be moving out on her own for a bit now that she’s graduated, and she wanted to downsize a little.”

“Anything good?” He let himself be pulled into the house, trying not to think about the last time he’d been around the rest of the family. Before Christmas, after Thanksgiving—everything had gone to shit in the first half of the school year last time.

“Some kind of vampire romance series? I’m enjoying it. And one of those werewolf detective books. Mom would probably flip her lid if she knew how much sex was in them, though.” Nicky gave him a tiny, unhappy smile, her hands fisting in the fabric of his sweater.

He wanted to scoop her up and carry her out of here, just plop her in the front seat of his car and start driving. Not back to his apartment or anything, just… somewhere other than here. Maybe they could pick a direction and _go_ until they hit ocean, have some fun with it.

It was a nice little daydream, at least.

“You should let go before Mom sees you,” he said, dragging his hand over her back and feeling the way her shoulders slumped in resignation. “I probably won’t be allowed to stay long anyways.”

“It’s just not _fair_ ,” Nicky whispered before finally letting go. “I have to go back to babysitting, I guess. Everyone brought toddlers. Why am I in charge of the toddlers?”

“Because your customer service job makes you well equipped to deal with screaming lunatics who can’t listen to reason?” Aiden smiled at the soft, watery laugh she gave him, then squeezed her shoulder tight. She nodded, wiping at her eyes, then disappeared down the hall, heading upstairs to handle the collected children.

He remembered, vaguely, that his cousin Fiona had been pregnant around the time he was kicked out. She must have had the baby, and the rest of them must have had some kids too—were all of the other boys married already? Aiden supposed they had to be, even if their twenties seemed awful young to him. Maybe he was just projecting.

No more time for stalling. He breathed deep, then pulled his delivery cap off his head and shoved it in his back pocket before leaving the foyer and heading in.

Aunt Kathleen’s living room was crowded with people when he walked in. At some point, she’d knocked down the walls between it and the kitchen and dining room, leaving the entire area massive and open. It helped, a little, but not nearly enough with over a dozen adults mingling between the rooms. No wonder Nicky was on toddler duty; it’d be hard to keep an eye on the kids in the mass of people, and little fingers were very easy to step on if the adults weren’t careful.

George was closest to the door, leaning in to explain something to a lovely dark-haired woman wearing a matching wedding band. Across the room, he could see two other walls of muscle he presumed were Thomas and Samuel—both of them had gone and shaved their heads, which made telling them apart difficult, and he didn’t recognize the women standing next to either of them. John was nowhere in sight but he was bound to be around, because he was the only one of them that had _made something_ of himself (as Aiden’s mother loved to remind him when he was younger) so he couldn’t miss a chance to lord it over everyone.

His aunts and their husbands were all crowded in the kitchen past the island covered in alcohol and Thanksgiving leftovers, discussing something in tight, soft tones, which meant it was probably about him. His mother was visible through the windows on the back door, talking with his grandmother and a female cousin with a mole on her cheek—Annalise, the eldest. That meant that the one standing by George’s wife frowning down at her phone was Fiona.

And then there was Emily. Just as much a stranger to her family as Aiden was to his, in dark clothes with her ornate pentagram indiscreet where it laid across her breasts. Her blood red hair was still down to her waist, and it eased the tightness in Aiden’s chest a little to see that, to see that she was still proud of it even after the black-dye-debacle from when she was sixteen. He remembered that she hadn’t been around for that last Thanksgiving, because she’d been off at college and fighting with her mom.

He could relate.

“Hey stranger,” she said, coming over and wrapping her arms around him tight. She was chubby the way all Kelly women except his mother had gone chubby, and her perfume was light and smelled like vanilla and cloves, wrapping around him with the same kind of warmth. His arms found their way around her waist before he could even think about it, the nostalgia hitting him with the force of a truck.

“Hey yourself,” he said softly, throat tight. “I’m surprised Aunt Kathleen even let me through the door.”

A small frown made its way onto her face as she pulled back, hands coming up to cup his face. “What do you mean by—”

“Aiden!” Aunt Molly’s voice rang out, bawdy and just a hint mean. “We were wondering when you’d show up! How many years has it been, sweetie? Having fun living on your own?”

Oh. So that’s how they were playing it.

Aiden wondered what it was that made them hide it from the cousins—was it the sin of having the family outcast be gay on top of it? Was it the fear of opposition from their own kids? Emily would have had his back, that he was sure of, but the rest of them were about as likely to toss him out in the cold as his mother had been. That made him think it was the stain of homosexuality on the family tree that kept the secret tight between the aunts, a group of crowing older women who had stood by his mother unilaterally.

There weren’t any small children around. In a burst of petty fucking glory, Aiden decided to be as mean as possible. Channeling his inner Damien, he lifted his voice loud enough to be heard by everyone and said, “Yeah, it’s been about five years since I was kicked out for being a faggot. I don’t blame you for not remembering though—probably didn’t mean much to you in the long run.”

In the startled silence that followed, he saw George straighten up, his brothers stiffening their shoulders like they were gearing up for a fight. When he was younger, Aiden had done a lot of cowardly things to avoid being dragged into a proper Kelly brawl. He couldn’t remember any of them now, all those escape routes he’d memorized lost in the heat of the moment.

Aunt Molly’s smile disappeared. The look on Aunt Kathleen’s face was positively murderous, her husband’s hand around one shoulder the only thing keeping her back. And outside, he saw Annalise turn with a frown towards the sudden silence, his mother’s grey eyes following a second after.

The brief feeling of triumph vanished, leaving a sick, gaping hole in his gut instead.

“Well I don’t know why you’d say something silly like that,” Aunt Molly said with a lot more vinegar than honey, “since we all know you’ve just been off doing your own thing. Isn’t that right?”

He watched his mother open the back door, watched her walk in, felt everything else fall to the wayside as the room narrowed to a tunnel between him and her. From a distance, he heard himself say, “If by ‘my own thing’ you mean about a third of the male population in Chicago, sure. That’s about right.”

“Don’t be fucking vulgar,” snapped Aunt Molly, who was apparently immune to irony.

“Aiden, what are you doing?” hissed his cousin Emily, who was still standing at his side but no longer holding on to him.

“I see you’re still playing this childish game,” said his mother, cold and hard, and the words were like a knife right through his gut.

“It’s not a game,” he said, struggling to breathe around the tight, frozen fear in his lungs. How many times had he tried to reach back out to her? How many times had he told her he was sorry but he couldn’t help being gay? How many times had she just ignored him the second he’d stopped being convenient, made all the easier now that she didn’t feel any obligation to keep him around?

“Of course it is,” she said dismissively. For a second, it was like seeing his grandmother in duo, one inside and one outside, both of them cruel and uninterested in a Kelly boy that had the gall to be named something else. “Why else would you show up here? And _flaunting_ it—my god, Aiden, look at yourself. Is this really the man I raised you to be?”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw George make an abortive gesture, past his mother. Aiden couldn’t figure out who it was aimed at and assumed it was probably himself based on principle. Ixnay on the ice cream delivery.

Not that he could bring it up anyways, not with all the other things bubbling up in his chest and spilling out of his mouth like bile. “You _didn’t_ fucking raise me, you kicked me _out_. I was fucking homeless, Mom! I was living in my goddamn _car_! If you didn’t want me to run right to the shitbag you caught me making out with, maybe you should have considered _that_!”

The crack of her palm against his cheek wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should have been. Heat and pain bloomed up a half-second later, the old wedding ring on her finger cutting a sharp line over his cheek.

“Don’t you _ever_ speak to me like that again,” his mother hissed. Seconds later, George was there and steering her away, one hand wrapped around Aunt Molly’s arm to haul her off too.

“I think you should leave,” Aunt Kathleen said, her lips thin and white with pure fury. Aunt Mary Anne was a half-step behind her, glaring at Emily by his side and mouthing her name angrily.

“Not a problem,” Aiden said, hearing himself like it was someone else saying it. Whoever was piloting his body had nailed the ‘bored and disinterested’ tones perfectly. They deserved a raise.

_He_ deserved a drink. Before he could overthink it, he reached past Kathleen and liberated a mostly full bottle of whiskey off the counter.

“Just stopped by for this,” he said, his pilot absolutely killing it on the delivery. Emily’s hand caught at the edge of his sweater but it wasn’t a strong enough grip to hold him, and he walked right past her and out the front door, already taking a hard swig from the bottle.

The burn did a little to bring him back, but not enough to matter. If he climbed in his car with an open container on _Thanksgiving_ of all days, there was no way he wouldn’t get arrested. Since the last thing he needed was a DUI on his record, he swerved away from the driveway to the side of the house, ducking under Aunt Kathleen’s roses and finding a good spot to sit.

It was fucking freezing outside, but that was what the whiskey was for. Hard to feel the ache in his bones if he didn’t feel anything at all.

He was about halfway through the bottle when the rose bushes rustled around him, Emily’s face ducking into view a moment later. A look of pure relief crossed over her face and she called softly, “Found him.”

“I told you he always hid under the roses when the boys would fight,” Nicky said, wasting no time worming her way through the thorns to curl up against his side. She was very warm and he pressed his face to her hair with a soft sigh.

“Mamma would be pissed if she found out.” George’s bulk moved into his range of vision, one meaty hand snagging the neck of the bottle out from under Aiden’s fingers. As much as he resented that, Aiden simply didn’t have the motivation to get it back.

“I’m going to go stall,” Emily said as she stood up again. “And I’ll cover for Nicky. Can you get him someplace out of the cold?”

“I don’t think Mamma will let him back inside after that. Hey, Aiden—have you got a boyfriend we can call to pick you up?”

“He is _not_ my boyfriend,” Aiden said, with the careful enunciation of a man who knew exactly how drunk he was: very. “We are _just_ fucking. We are not even _friends_ , because he is an _asshole_ and I will not be boyfriends with an asshole. I don’t do relationships.”

The soft sigh under his shoulder reminded him that youthful (teenage, rebellious) ears were listening.

“Don’t say fuck,” he told Nicky, seriously. “And do _not_ date assholes. You can date. Boys are fine. But not assholes. If he’s a dick, use him for his penis and then leave, but don’t stick around. Also. Condoms.”

“Okay, Aiden,” she said wryly, patting his chest.

“Jesus Christ he went through that like water,” muttered George, digging Aiden’s phone out of his pocket and frowning at the lock screen. “What’s your passcode?”

“Zero-four-twenty-three-zero-one.” He shut his eyes, breathed in the smell of Nicky’s shampoo, and wondered if he could steal the whiskey away while George was distracted. The cold was coming back, and he wanted to be warm.

“My birthday?” Nicky asked, her hand warm when she pressed the back of it against his cheek. “God, you’re freezing. We need to get him going soon.”

“You and Jordi share a day, just not a month or year. Bad security. It’s an unsafe code, technically. Easy to socially engineer. Pick a number that isn’t any birthdays or street numbers you used to live on for your own,” he told her, squeezing her shoulders gently. At least, he hoped it was gently.

“Okay, Aiden,” she said again. “Who should we call to pick you up?”

_Not_ Jordi. Jordi was an asshole, and besides, his condo had a parking situation over the holiday. Jordi was out. So were his roommates, who were also assholes, and Aiden didn’t think any of them were in town anyways—Maurice and Abigail wouldn’t be in until later tonight, and Dusan was… somewhere. DedSec? Wait, he didn’t have their numbers. Fuck. Clara? Could he call Clara?

“Well she’s the second number in your favorites, so I’m going with her,” George said, patting him on the thigh. Aiden realized belatedly that he’d been rambling that all out loud. Fuck, he was drunk.

“Yeah, you are,” both of them said simultaneously, Nicky giving George a shy smile before tucking her head under Aiden’s chin.

He let himself drift as George made the call, sinking into the warmth of Nicky’s body at his side and his cousin’s hand over his leg. Fuck, he should’ve stuck around to hear the explanations to all the spouses—that was bound to be a hoot. If George was being nice to him, than his wife was probably nice too. Aiden hoped she wasn’t too upset by what had happened in there.

“You really didn’t know?” he asked unhappily as George tucked the phone back into his pocket.

His cousin paused, then dragged his hand through his ginger hair with a sigh. “No, we didn’t, but… I mean, we figured it was just like with Emily. We gave you shit for being the baby so you threw up the finger and went off to make your own name. That’s on us. We should’ve looked harder.”

“Your mom knew,” Aiden told him, running his fingers over the gold band on George’s finger. Celtic knots wound around it. He wondered if any of the cousins planned to visit Ireland someday. “I called her when Mom kicked me out. I called all of them. They said I deserved it.”

He felt Nicky tense up next to him as something very like a promise of violence crossed over George’s face. After a second, he leaned in, heedless of the rose bushes and their thorns, to press his forehead to Aiden’s.

“If there’s one thing I want to achieve as a father,” he said very seriously, “it’s making sure I _never_ treat my son the way our family has treated you. You didn’t deserve that, Aiden. No matter what Mamma or any of the rest of them say.”


	12. INTERMISSION II: Clara

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Clara chapter! The following one is fully written too, but I want to get more done on some of the later ones before I post it, so it may be a few days before that goes up.

“ **Are you not entertained?!** ” Defalt’s voice boomed, amplified by the voice modifier he was currently running in his mask. His arms lifted in a universal expression of triumph, his opponent laying in defeat as the fighting game slowly faded out to a results screen.

Laughing so hard she thought she might actually bust a lung, Clara requeued them for online team battles. She was absolutely abysmal at these games, but it worked out in their favor—her poor scores inevitably dragged down his godlike ones, which meant they were set up against opponents that were too difficult for her and entirely too easy for him. With the influx of small children playing online, it was even easier.

“ **Do you not struggle? Do you not** **_suffer_** **?** ” he roared at the character select scene,  once again proving that his decision to soundproof the entire apartment (the better for his music) was a brilliant one.

A faint, tinny radio song started up, off-key to the music of the game. It took her a minute to pinpoint the sound, her phone resting facedown on the tiny kitchen counter. She picked the same character she’d taken last time and walked over to it, completely uncaring of the fact that she was going to die instantly. They only queued together so Defalt could go up against multiple opponents anyways.

“You _never_ call,” she told Aiden as she picked up, grabbing the desiccated remains of their takeout and tossing the containers.

“Hi,” said a completely unfamiliar man, his voice deep but not quite as low and gravely as Aiden’s. “Sorry to bother you. I’m Aiden’s cousin, George. If I text you an address, do you think you could get a rideshare out here? I can pay.”

Instantly, her hackles went up. Aiden had _never_ mentioned a cousin before, never talked about anything but his baby sister. Having some strange man call from Aiden’s phone didn’t endear her to the possibility of him telling the truth—for all she knew, it was someone spoofing Aiden’s number. BadBoy17 was high up enough in DedSec as a whole to attract some unwanted attention.

“That would depend on why you want me _at_ that address,” she said coolly, leaning against the counter.

Out in the living room, Defalt was quiet. He was a clever man when he wanted to be, and very good at picking up on the sound of someone talking on the phone. It could be an irritating habit when it wasn’t perfectly useful for her.

“He’s…” The man trailed off, then sighed. “He’s really drunk. Drunk enough that he shouldn’t be driving, but if Mamma catches his car parked out front, she’ll have it towed. I need a friend of his to take him someplace safe. If you can’t, can you tell me the number of someone who can?”

He sounded honest. Honest men rarely were, though, so her guard remained up. But on the off chance that this strange man was telling the truth… “Text me the address. I will text you back how long it will take.”

“ _Thank_ you,” George said fervently before hanging up. The address came from Aiden’s phone a second later, some house about forty minutes by car and two hours by public transport.

She frowned. It did not seem suspicious. That made her _more_ suspicious, because she trusted very little that seemed innocuous on the front of it. The fact that she couldn’t simply avoid going if Aiden _was_ in trouble made it worse—as traps went, this one was very well laid.

“Câlisse,” she muttered before grabbing a jacket and her wallet.

“The hell are you going?” Defalt asked, his voice warbling from electronic to human as he pulled the mask off.

“Aiden’s drunk and helpless, apparently. I’m going to go see if this is true—I’ll text you the address too, and the name of the man who called. Can you look up to see any connections for me? If I’m walking into a trap, I’d prefer to know ahead of time.” She checked that her house keys were in her pocket too, then caught the hanging strands of her hair up and fixed her mohawk. Good enough.

“Lemme destroy these chumps and I’ll boot up my system.” Defalt turned his attention back to the screen but without the vigor and excitement from earlier. If this was someone’s sick idea of a joke, Clara might very well learn to shoot a gun _just for them_.

She ordered a car to the address and texted the information up to Defalt. It was a quiet ride, her driver shutting up as soon as she proved unwilling to talk. About five minutes from her destination, Defalt sent along the information requested.

Home owned by Kathleen Kelly and her husband, Adam Kelly. They had three children by birth, one of which was a George. Some further digging in family records revealed a link to a Rosalind Kelly née Pearce, with two children: Aiden and Nicole. She’d been a Kelly first, married and changed her name before moving to Ireland, then changed it again twelve years later when she arrived back in America.

As Defalt said, it looked legit. That did not help the pit in her stomach.

Aiden’s car was parked at the end of the driveway and the pit grew deeper as she crunched up through the dead grass. Before she could head for the front door, a large redhead with a beard whistled from the other side of the house, surrounded by the dormant looming shapes of rose bushes. Clara adjusted her trajectory and headed that way, keys held loose and easy in her hand in case she needed a distraction during a fight.

“Thank you for coming to pick him up,” said the man, presumably George. Behind him, a blonde head with dark roots popped up, the softly rounded cheeks reminiscent of Aiden even if the eyes and hair were not.

“Are you Clara?” the girl said, scrambling to her feet. “I’m Nicky his—”

“—Sister. Yes, he’s talked about you before.” Clara let herself be dragged under the arch of the roses. Once past the initial few bushes, she could see the familiar worn denim of Aiden’s jeans, his body half-curled up under the thorny branches. There was a massive leather aviator’s jacket wrapped around him like a blanket and a flush on his cheeks.

“He passed out about ten minutes ago, but we can’t exactly bring him inside,” Nicky said fretfully, reaching out to run her fingers through her brother’s hair.

“I can help you get him in the car though,” rumbled the giant behind her. “Mamma won’t want to upset my wife when we just found out she’s expecting again, so she can’t yell at me for another couple months. By the time she can, she’ll have cooled off.”

He didn’t sound completely certain about that, Clara noted. When she was younger, she used to dream about having a big family, something more than her grand-mère and the father that only showed up when he wasn’t supposed to be in prison. Looking at Aiden’s unhappy face, the smear of blood on one cheek and the bruising forming in the shape of a hand, she thought that maybe having only her grand-mère had been a good thing.

“Do you have his keys?” she asked, licking her thumb and rubbing it against the dried blood. Not enough came off to matter, but she noted how cold his skin was in the late autumn air.

“He always keeps them in his back pocket,” Nicky said, scooting out of the way for her cousin. Clara stood as well, brushing off her knees and stepping back as George hefted Aiden up in his arms, his head lolling against the ginger giant’s shoulder. Sure enough, the keys hung out of Aiden’s back pocket.

She snagged them and unlocked the car, following Aiden’s cousin down the drive. As always, it was pristine inside—Aiden was neurotic about his car, to the point that riding with him wasn’t very fun. He was religious about road laws too, up until the point he suddenly wasn’t. Someday she would figure out whatever internal rules he had.

A hand on her elbow made her pause as she started to go around to the driver’s side. Nicky’s bright, worried eyes met her own, and the girl chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds before blurting, “Can I have your number?”

It would be cruel to refuse her. Clara felt her expression soften, and she sighed as she pulled her phone out. “Of course you can. I’ll text you when I have him home. And you can text _me_ … whenever. Sometimes a girl needs someone she can talk to, no?”

The smile that spread across Nicky’s face was like the sun breaking over the horizon at dawn.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> f i n a l s w e e k
> 
> On that note: to those of you coming up on those yourselves, you've got this shit. You're gonna be okay, I promise.

He had an _impressive_ hangover when he woke up, his face plastered to someone else’s cotton pillowcases. The room had that particular lilac/fake-rain smell that he associated with Clara, and when he dared to crack an eye open, the art and posters on the walls held to that association. There was an absolute beast of a computer sitting on a sturdy but plain desk in the corner and a pile of sketchbooks stacked next to it, the top open on what looked like the colored version of what Clara’s lined tattoos were meant to be.

With a groan, he rolled onto his back to squint at the other side of the room. Dresser, door, laundry basket mostly full. There was a black bra hanging from the door handle, the lace patterned like spiderwebs on it. _Definitely_ Clara’s room.

Why was he in Clara’s room?

The events of yesterday hit him in a rush and Aiden groaned again, dropping an arm over his eyes. Fuck. What a fantastic way to re-enter his cousins’ lives. “Hey, I’m the one you guys all hated as kids, by the way I’m gay and you’re all Catholic, let’s be friends”? What the fuck had he been thinking?

He hadn’t. That was what it came down to, in the end. He hadn’t been thinking, he’d been feeling and reacting to things out of baseless, directionless _hurt_. Well, look where that got him: all his aunts pissed off all over again, his mother mad enough that she’d actually hit him, and now Clara had gotten a front row seat to all the ways he’d fucked up his life. Not to mention whatever his cousins were thinking now.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he groaned, dragging his hands down his face.

Since he couldn’t fix any of his problems by moping in Clara’s room, he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled out of it. With his stomach rebelling, he found the bathroom and poured himself a glass of water, and then another when the first didn’t immediately come back up. Carrying his third glass he walked out of the bathroom and headed for the living room.

Where Defalt was, apparently, arranging fake penises on the table. Hm.

“Is this like the scene in Godfather where someone wakes up with a horse head on their pillow?” Aiden asked, wincing at the rust flaking off his voice. Jesus, he sounded like he’d gone through a woodchipper and barely been glued back together.

“Well, I haven’t exactly gotten the chance to abduct any other guys,” Defalt said with that odd rising and falling diction of his, not unlike the mad gigglings of a cartoon villain, “so I’m using you for study purposes now.”

“Are you going to chop my penis off and add it to your collection?”

“Not yet.” On that ominous note, Defalt stepped back from the table and threw his arms open wide. The gesture for Aiden to come closer and look was obvious, and he was still hungover and baffled enough to take him up on it. All of them, weirdly enough, were soft and limp, not solid enough to be worth a damn as a dildo.

Two of them were also obviously nonhuman. Aiden squinted at them for a few seconds longer, then sighed and gulped down the rest of his water. “Alright, I’ll bite. What are they for?”

“If you can’t grow your own dick, store bought is fine,” Defalt said in a mocking imitation of a Food Network hostess, then gave him a look of disgust. “I can’t decide on a packer that’ll actually look real, stupid. You’ve got yours preattached, so you can at least tell me what looks right.”

Preattached was a hell of a way to put it. Too tired to argue, he looked back at the lineup and did some mental estimates against Defalt’s slimmer, lankier frame and his long pianist fingers. Eventually, he pointed at one of the human ones, not the biggest of the bunch but not the smallest either.

“Where do you even get these?” Aiden wondered out loud.

“Off of drunk idiots who take up my living space for the holidays.”

* * *

The grades for their Anatomy project came in a day before finals week, which was a fucking relief because he needed to get rid of at least _one_ sword hanging over his head. He’d actually, genuinely, gotten an A on the paper. And then, somehow got another mid-eighties grade on the final after two grueling hours of multiple choice tests.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Neither his Anthropology nor his English Comp classes were particularly hard compared to the Anatomy class, but that just meant his gaze kept tracking over to Jordi during the exam periods, running over the lines of his muscular back hidden under the folds of a silk shirt. At least the programming classes didn’t have that secondary distraction—his online exam was a breeze, and the class with Josh had a practical instead of anything conceptual in nature.

In the end, he got through his second fall semester with a solid 3.2 grade average. DedSec as a whole went out to a bar and got completely fucking smashed along with the rest of the celebrating college students; Josh and Defalt both acquired fake IDs from somewhere and Aiden made no attempt to rat them out since he still had his own tucked in one of his bags back home. They’d all survived another four months of school, and for the rest of them, everything was going to be just fine

There were still a few swords hanging over Aiden’s head.

* * *

He had a little used group chat with the rest of his roommates. Early on, it had been there mostly to remind each other of grocery needs or bill payments, but as the Bathroom Wars (as Aiden had mentally dubbed them, capital letters and all) raged on, it had gotten less and less use overall. The last text in it was from him, posting his school schedule so everyone knew when he was genuinely unavailable.

At least, that _had_ been the last text. Now, there were two more. One from Abigail, one from Dusan. Both had the same message: “We need to talk.”

He rolled off of Sitara’s couch (where he’d ended up somehow during the bar crawl) and rubbed at his eyes, hoping that maybe he was just seeing things. No dice. From the kitchen came the soft, bubbling rumble of a coffee maker, and he had to step over an amorphous mass of blankets and pillows concealing Marcus and Wrench on his way over. Defalt was curled up under the game room table, using Snick’s ass as a pillow, but Clara was up and scrolling through her own phone.

“Hey,” she said with a soft smile, tipping her head up at him. “There’s coffee. Will be, at least—it’s still brewing.”

“Thanks,” he said, dragging a hand over day-old stubble and squinting up at the ceiling. “Everyone else still out?”

“Mhm. Well, everyone but Horatio—he left for work ten minutes ago. And I'm pretty sure Josh went home last night once everyone started crashing. I _think_ the rest of us could probably be convinced to do a little day drinking though. We’ve earned it.”

“Don’t you have a job?” he asked, lips quirking despite himself.

“Perish the thought. I have an _apprenticeship_ , it’s a very different beast.” Though her words were light, Clara’s eyes were worried, and she reached up to touch one of the dark bruises still lingering under his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Instead of answering, he showed her the texts. From the sharp hiss of her inhale, she saw the words as ominously as he did. She’d been party to the Bathroom Wars by proxy since the very beginning, and if Clara saw the writing on the wall too…

It would be fine, Aiden told himself as he poured a cup of coffee and texted back. Their lease had another five months on it, and there was no way Maurice and Abigail could afford another place if Dusan got sick of them. Worst came to worst, he was just going to help Abigail find someone to take on Dusan’s bulk of the lease—it wasn’t like _Dusan_ could evict them, after all, the most he could do was leave. And that would hurt, it would hurt his finances bad, but Aiden could float that rent for a month or two maybe.

Besides, it was fucking Chicago. Everyone was desperate to find good housing in Chicago. They’d be swimming in possible roommates. Probably.

He did not have a panic attack. He finished his coffee, hugged Clara tight and told her to let everyone know why he was heading back so soon, and then walked out to his car. It was exactly where he’d parked it last night before chasing the rest of them out to the bar, which was a relief. He couldn’t quite remember the later parts of the night, so things were a bit… murky.

Not thinking about it. Not thinking about a lot of things right now, with something that could be a hangover or a stress headache lingering around the edges of his temples. Once he cleared up whatever conversation Dusan and Abigail wanted to have, he’d go do something fun. Relaxing. Maybe come back here. Maybe—

And he stumbled over the _other_ thing he was trying not to think about: the fact that, with their project turned in and the semester over, he couldn’t justify seeing Jordi anymore. They had nothing to work on together. He’d passed his class. There wasn’t a _point_ behind it, not any point other than the fact that Aiden _wanted_ to see him.

Fuck, he was in too deep.

Rubbing his hand over his face again, he parked and climbed out of his car, hunting in his pockets for his cigarettes. He needed to pick up another pack soon, but taking the time to smoke through two of them helped ease some of the headache and calm him down again. If he was panicking before the house meeting even _started_ , he’d be absolutely useless during the negotiations phase. It was fine. He would be fine.

“Okay,” he said to himself, grinding his the second cigarette butt into the ground as his breath fogged up in the cold morning air. “Okay. Time to face the music.”

Maurice and Abigail were both sitting on the couch talking in hushed tones when he came through the front door, though they went silent when they noticed him. Aiden gave them a weak smile, hanging up his jacket and chafing at his fingers, trying to ignore the raw ache in his left wrist. The sound of water in the pipes said that Dusan was probably taking advantage of the master bathroom for a shower while waiting.

“You don’t have work today?” he asked Abigail, when neither of them broke the silence.

“Later this afternoon,” she said, shifting closer to Maurice and patting the couch. He walked over and sat, uncomfortably aware that this left only the kitchen bar stools as other places to sit, and wondered if that aligned him with Abigail against Dusan. Or would he see it as a simple logistics issue?

Dusan had made a cryptic remark about watching who he kept company with a couple weeks ago, with a pointed glance down at Aiden’s phone. Given that last he’d heard, Dusan was still faintly obsessed with Marcus, the intentions had been clear.

Fuck. Aiden was fucked. He was the most fucked he’d ever been, and that included the time he'd gotten entirely too drunk at a Pride party last year and somehow ended up taking part in an orgy.

The rumble in the pipes stopped, and two minutes later, Dusan walked out.

He wasn’t perfectly coiffed like always—his hair hung damp and long around his shoulders, beard not yet trimmed into perfection. There was still a cool aura of authority to him though, and he folded himself into a perfect lotus position on the floor in front of the couch.

“So. Let’s get this started,” he said, tracking his gaze over all three of them and lingering on Aiden. “I got a job offer in San Francisco, a transfer. Blume’s willing to front both my moving fees and the costs to both break my lease here and take on a new one in the Bay Area. I’m leaving before the end of the year.”

That wasn’t unexpected, and Aiden turned his head to see how Abigail was taking her supposed victory. Unexpectedly, there was a small frown on her face, and Maurice was looking back at him with guilt written across his features.

“My dad’s in a bad way. Maurice and I are moving back in with my parents next week, but I’ll pay up for the month and our part for breaking the lease,” she said bluntly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

The gravity of his situation hit him like a stack of bricks over the head. _He_ was going to be the only one in charge of the lease—and in practice, Aiden had been paying a fifth of the total rent, because he’d had the lowest income and made the least amount of fuss over controlling the common spaces. He could not, absolutely could not, shell out over a thousand dollars a month in rent, and anyone he found to be his roommates wouldn’t accept the measly fraction he had been paying.

Oh fuck no was he getting stuck with _that_ problem.

“If we all break it together, that’ll make it easier,” Aiden said, sounding a hell of a lot calmer than he actually felt. “That means we don’t have to deal with swapping utilities around and we can make sure the place is clean and maybe get our security deposit back.”

“True,” Dusan said, tipping his head thoughtfully. He didn’t seem surprised that Aiden was more willing to buy his way out of the lease than get stuck with the full bill.

Abigail looked at him with worry, though. “Are you sure? I mean, Maurice and I could probably float an extra month of rent while you look for roommates—”

“Really, it’s fine. Clara’s been asking me if I wanted to move in with her and Defalt anyways,” he lied, giving her a smile that he hoped was reassuring.

“Man, that worked out a lot better than we thought it would,” Maurice said with wonder, cheering up almost instantly. A dark, mean little part of Aiden wanted to take Maurice’s face and smash it right into the coffee table, then keep smashing until it was _part_ of the coffee table. Permanently.

“Well, in that case,” Aiden said, pushing himself upright. “I’m going to go pack up so I can move out soon as possible. Do we want to all go in and break the lease at the same time?”

“I called the office, they’re ready for us now.” Abigail pushed herself upright too, swinging back towards her shared room with Maurice to pick up their portion of the money.

Dusan simply stood and strode back into his room, presumably to both get ready and write out a check. Of all of them, he was the least likely to be in financial straits from this. Lucky fucker.

At least Aiden didn’t have to worry about furniture. None of them did, because this apartment was prefurnished, though if Maurice had fucked up the bedroom fittings in his room, they wouldn’t get the deposit back. With his textbooks sold back to the bookstore on the last day of finals, Aiden didn’t have that to worry about either.

He had his clothes, which fit in one and a half suitcases, and then the few odds and ends he’d picked up over the last year, which fit in the other half. That was his life. Two suitcases.

A hysterical giggle wanted to bubble up, but Aiden stomped it back down again.

So maybe it was reminding him, a bit, of coming home and seeing Damien all over some fucking college coed and finding out he’d been kicked out without warning. So maybe he was in almost the exact same spot he’d been two years ago, just accepted to a shitty little two year college and homeless because almost no one had open spaces to rent out that he could afford. So maybe he was staring down the barrel of living in his car again for some indeterminate amount of time until another Dusan walked into his life, careless and willing to take on whatever college kids needed a place for just a bit more extra rent.

So what? It would be fine. He would be fine. He was always fine, wasn’t he? He’d been fine every other fucking time he’d been uprooted without warning, he’d be fine now.

Besides. What was the worst that could happen? He ended up living out of his car? Been there, done that, got the relentless paranoia of getting caught for all five weeks he’d been stuck there to show for his efforts. Boo hoo. He could do it again. He could just suck it up and do it again, it wouldn’t be a big deal, and he’d be fine.

He’d be fine.

He pressed his hands to the wall and gulped down several harsh, desperate breaths. It didn’t help any, but it let him fix the usual mostly neutral expression he wore back on his face as he found his rarely used checkbook and made sure there was enough in his checking account. It drained his savings dangerously low, but that was fine.

Since it would be a temptation that was hard to resist, he refused to even glance at the balance in Nicky’s account.

The management office was efficient enough when it came to all of them signing off and paying. They were going to send in a cleaning crew regardless, so Aiden mentally wrote off the security deposit and decided he’d figure out some other way of filling that savings account back up. Fuck it, apparently camgirling was lucrative. Maybe Clara would know if camboying was even a thing.

Maybe Jordi would.

His thoughts stumbled over themselves at that, not quite able to turn away from the subject again. He kept going back to the idea of Jordi’s frankly absurd little condo and the fact that he had an _excuse_ now, he actually had an excuse to contact Jordi. It wasn’t school related, no, but Aiden was going to have to find a place to crash while apartment hunting anyways, right?

Before he could stop himself and remember that Jordi was an asshole, he already had his phone out and a text sent off asking if he could come over. If Jordi said no, that was it. And Aiden would still be fine, because Aiden was always fine, no matter what life threw at him.

When Jordi said the opposite of no, Aiden tossed both of his suitcases and his backpack into the trunk of his car before heading back up for a final sweep of his room. He’d never bought dishes or anything else for the communal spaces, and all his bathing supplies were in his second suitcase. After stripping the bed and making sure everything else in his room was otherwise neat and tidy, he grabbed his coat off the back of the door and left.

He asked for a guest pass from the security guard again, neatly affixing it himself to the mirror of his car. It had been filled out for a week, which was the limit this condo association put on guests, and he silently sent good thoughts the guard’s way for thinking of him as he headed for the elevators.

When he got up to Jordi’s room this time, the panic clawing its way up his chest was a lot more real. Real enough that Jordi took one look at his face and frowned, moving over to grab Aiden’s shoulder and spin him around for a better view. “Are you okay? You’re not sick, are you?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Aiden said, rubbing at his cheek with a self-deprecating laugh. “Nah, I’ve just managed to get myself into kind of a renting problem. My roommates and I broke our lease because the rest of them are leaving the city, so I’m kind of in the wind until I find another place to stay. Mind if I stick around for a couple days while I look?”

The hand on his shoulder drifted up, cupped around his cheek and dragged a thumb over the newly healed cut as Jordi let the door swing closed. There were still bags under Aiden’s eyes, and he hadn’t bothered to shave when he’d gotten back to the apartment. Honestly, he probably smelled like a bar still, which definitely didn’t help his image. Jordi would be well within his rights to kick him out now and avoid the risk of Aiden overstaying his welcome.

“Why don’t you move in with me?” Jordi said.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aiden backstory chapter! It's. Well. He's had it rough.
> 
> Warnings:  
> \- onscreen underage drinking and smoking  
> \- referenced child abuse  
> \- the important one: Damien is 23 when he meets Aiden. Aiden is 14. I have no intentions of portraying the explicits of that relationship, but this chapter does feature Damien taking advantage of Aiden at a party, and there are underlying implications of grooming him further after the fact. If the allusion to that is uncomfortable for you, this is your big warning to go ahead and skip the section starting off with "Aiden was fourteen" entirely.  
> (This is also the reason for the Past Sexual Abuse tag; it's never going to be more than referenced in the abstract, but it _is_ referenced.)

“So you just _left_?” Clara’s voice was incredulous but not, Aiden noticed, surprised.

“I _panicked_ , okay?” he hissed, hunching his shoulders in as he pulled his coffee closer. “I wasn’t sure how to say ‘no’ without sounding like a dick so I told him I needed to meet up with you about something and I’d be back in a bit! I know it wasn’t the best idea, but—”

“But you said that you already broke your lease with everyone else,” Clara said, her hands wrapped around a coffee mug as she leaned forward. Snow was falling slow outside the cafe window, dusting everything in white and turning to slush under the wheels of the cars rushing by. “Why is it a problem if you just pick up a new one right away?”

“It’s not that it’s a problem it’s that—Look, it’s not signing a new lease that’s the problem. I’m going to have to do it with _someone_ , and I don’t have commitment issues or whatever over it. But Jordi wants me to move in with _him_.” That was the vicious, wild thing fluttering in his chest and making it hard for him to think straight. Moving in with _Jordi_.

“I mean, Sitara might have room but…” She rubbed her cheek, frowning. “Defalt and I don’t have room for a third and our landlord won’t let you sleep on the couch for more than three nights in a row. I know Marcus’s lease is similar, and I think Snickerdoodle is still living with her parents. Do you really have any better options?”

He didn’t.

“I don’t want to move in with Jordi,” he said, helplessly.

“Why not?” she asked, her pale eyes soft and sad and begging for him to open up to her. They’d been friends for a year, longer, and they both held their secrets close to their chests. It had worked fine for them until now, but all she could see was his steadfast refusal to accept a way out of a bad situation.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again.

* * *

It went something like this:

Aiden was twelve years old and sitting on the wooden bench swing on Aunt Mary Anne’s back porch. His cousin Emily sat next to him, a cigarette between her fingers and the pack resting on the wood slats between them. She lit a second, handed it over, and told him, “See how you like it.”

She was his second cousin, not his first, but it was one of those said-unsaid things that Aiden wasn’t allowed to acknowledge. Just like _Aunt_ Mary Anne was his first cousin actually, and Grandma was actually his Great Aunt, and his mother wasn’t one of the sisters but a cousin to _them_ too, adopted at five years old and never raised outside the family after it. She appeared in grainy photos after that, with the rest of the sisters, even though all of them had hair red as fire while his mother was a sunny blonde.

This was all something he knew and couldn’t say. His first cousins were his aunts. His second cousins were just the cousins. His hair, a wispy blonde that was starting to darken and thicken along with his deepening voice and gangly body, was just like his Grandma’s and not at all like the hair of his Nana, who’d been a blonde before she went dark too.

His family had a lot of things that couldn’t be said.

“Don’t tell anyone I let you smoke,” said Emily when he coughed the first two times but stubbornly went back for a third pull. “My mom doesn’t even know _I_ smoke. She’d kill me.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Aiden, flushing a little when his voice cracked.

Cousin Emily laughed at him, but it was soft and husky instead of mean. Her hair was an auburn dark as blood, loosely curled and down to her waist. Of all the cousins, she was the nicest to him, and the closest to him in age at fifteen. Aunt Mary Anne’s other two girls were both in college already, and Aunt Kathleen had three boys in their late teens who were big and burly and liked to shove Aiden around. Two of them were already working for mechanics that were friends of the family, while the third was happily employed at a factory.

Aunt Molly only had one son, but he’d graduated early and gone off to _Harvard_ on a _scholarship_. Every time this was said, it was with meaningful glances at him and Emily, making a point of the standards by which they needed to measure up.

Aiden was beginning to notice those glances thrown his way more and more often.

He wasn’t like his male cousins. He was scrawny and thin, with spidery limbs and skin that liked to bruise in an instant. He didn’t burn in the sunlight like they did, but he also didn’t go dark with freckles either.

They were all red-headed giants, properly deferential to their mothers like their fathers before them. The Kelly family was a family of strong-minded Irish-American women, who kept their noses clean and rose above every hardship thrown their way. Grandma ruled with an iron fist, and the sisters were her lieutenants, carrying out her orders with brisk efficiency. His male cousins knew their place, and they’d worked to teach Aiden _his_ with brutal intent.

It didn’t work because he wasn’t like them. They prayed in church and talked about fucking hot girls and tipped their heads to their mothers and then turned around and sneered at their female cousins and they were all big and strong and loud the way Aiden was small and reedy and _weak_.

He very carefully took another drag on the cigarette. Emily smiled at him, her green eyes crinkling at the corners, and showed him a trick with the lighter.

“This will be our secret,” she told him, and he nodded, because Emily was his favorite. She liked to wear black and listen to rock and metal when Aunt Mary Anne wasn’t in the house, and she sometimes let him listen too. When she came back from private school, she always told him about how stupid it was and how all the people there were fakes.

She’d told him once she wanted to be a wiccan, and he’d asked what it was. The idea of religion outside of Catholicism hadn’t occurred to him until then. She’d told him once that she thought she was an atheist until she wasn’t. The idea that he could _opt out_ hadn’t occurred to him until then either.

She talked about kissing boys the way the other cousins talked about kissing girls, and Aiden wondered if she was getting the better deal here.

And when Aunt Mary Anne dragged him out of bed by his bad arm, screaming at him about the cigarette butts she’d found on the porch, he didn’t tell. It was a secret, and their family had a lot of those that he’d gotten good about not telling. As long as Emily kept the secret too, it was fine.

Except she’d left the lighter and the pack under his pillow at some point when he’d gone back to bed, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes for the rest of the day.

His family had a lot of secrets they held close. Hating Aiden wasn’t one of them.

* * *

It went something like this:

Aiden was fourteen years old and sneaking out of his mother’s house, gently easing the window back down again so it couldn’t latch properly. He always snuck out of Nicky’s room because she was nine and _loved_ to be party to some espionage, and because his mother never thought to check if her windows were locked once she’d gone to bed. Someday she’d figure it out, but she hadn’t yet.

There was a party and he’d been invited—as one of the only freshmen at his school who’d hit puberty hard and fast, a couple of the seniors had said he was cool enough to come. The fact that they were the same seniors that bought him cigarettes probably played a part, but Aiden hadn’t told them they couldn’t get him with alcohol too. His mom kept whiskey in a top shelf, but she was a short woman.

Aiden wasn’t very short anymore. He still didn’t look anything like his cousins. He was as tall as them now, but he ran lean where they ran thick, his shoulders the broadest part of him. His hair was dark and brown now, no hint of gold or red to it, and his stubble was patchy when he forgot to shave instead of being a full, proper beard. The only thing they shared were the green, green eyes, but that was something his mother lacked so he’d somehow ended up looking nothing like her.

He trotted down the sidewalk at an easy lope, rubbing his left wrist with the same idle motions he always did. Sometimes it helped, when the feeling in his fingertips went away and his wrist ached too much to bend, but mostly it didn’t do much. Smoking worked a lot better. Drinking worked even better than that.

The party was something of an outlier to his experiences, and Aiden approached it with the same careful strategy that he approached every new situation now. He explored the outside edges first, getting a feel for his surroundings and where all the exits were. The alcohol was located in short order too, red solo cups stacked high next to a keg, and his ‘friends’ on the third circuit through the crowd of strangers. Both of them were already drunk and laughing at him for still being sober, pushing cups into his hands and telling him to just _drink_ already.

It was pushier than he’d like, but Aiden drank.

He liked the way alcohol made him feel. It had started with Thomas pushing a beer into his hands at thirteen, scornful and loud about Aiden being a pussy and needing hair on his chest. At the time, he’d hated the taste, but the way it made him _feel_? The way it had taken the pain from his arm and his ankles, the way it had made his already loose joints go slacker with relaxation?

He’d loved that. He’d stolen shots of his mother’s whiskey, bummed beers off the rude male cousins, used his height and his deep voice at Aunt Molly’s bar to trick waitresses into serving him underage because they were too flustered to go against one of her nephews. (Not that he was really her nephew. The waitresses didn’t know that though.)

The solo cup in his hand now made him feel incredible, warm and painless as he made another circuit through the house. There were lots of people touching each other around him, kissing against the walls and grinding against each other on the furniture. There were even more people just clustered in groups talking, about trigonometry and psychology, midterms and scholarships.

He hadn’t even known his high school offered psychology classes. Maybe most of these other kids went to private schools nearby.

It was hard to care about people talking though, not when the people _moving_ were much more interesting. Aiden was better at computers than his mother was, so he’d become pretty adept at hiding his internet searches. Digital porn wasn’t anything like the real thing, like the guy across the room with his shirt off whose back muscles gleamed under the dim lights like pure sin, like the way a couple rocked against each other in a doorway and the boyfriend’s thighs flexed in his jeans.

Out of habit, he tried to look at a few girls and convince himself they were attractive.

Most of them weren’t. Intellectually, he knew that they had to be—long hair and makeup, tight clothes that showed off their curves if they had any. A lot of them had guys clearly interested, and a few of them even showed interest in _Aiden_ but he couldn’t dredge up anything similar for them. They were pretty, he guessed. They were kind of like Hollywood, kind of like Playboy, kind of like PornHub. Pretty. Untouchable.

Not his type, except his type didn’t seem to be any girl at all. He kept trying, and he watched lesbian porn for the girls with short hair up until their pants came off and he had to turn it off again.

A hand caught his arm and tugged him back before he could start on another circuit. Aiden let himself fall into the motion, his drink sloshing in the cup as he turned and met a pair of electric blue eyes set in a lean, smiling face.

“Hey,” said the guy, his hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. “You look kind of new. Frosh?”

“Uh, yeah,” Aiden said, a little dazed. The hand on his arm was warm through the fabric of his shirt, and the guy was wearing a button up shirt over an a-line, his collarbones sharp where they showed under the necks of both.

He’d never met a girl he was attracted to, and he’d never let himself admit it when it was a guy. But with those bright eyes pinning him in place, and with liquid courage in his gut, it was easier for Aiden to embrace the attraction. He wanted to feel this guy’s eyes on him.

He wanted to return the favor.

“My name’s Aiden,” he said, more confidently this time.

“Damien,” said the guy with a grin that was all teeth. “How about we go back to my place, huh?”

* * *

It went something like this:

At age six, his Nana threw them out because his father wouldn’t stop trying to get money out of her.

She’d cupped Aiden’s face close and pressed her fingers over his cheeks and whispered that she loved him and he could visit her any time. She’d run her swollen knuckles over his baby sister’s soft brow, and she’d walked him to the car without her cane for once. She’d promised him that she would always be there, and she died four months later of a stroke when no one came around to check on her in time.

At age ten, his mother packed him and his sister into the car and drove to the airport while their father was still sleeping off a bender at a friend’s house.

She’d told him that this was for the best, that they would be safe in America and that he was already a dual citizen. She’d told him that it would be scary at first but everything would be better once they got back to family. She’d told him that his father couldn’t hurt him anymore and that she would protect him this time, and she’d never even glanced back at him when Grandma picked them all up.

At age eleven, his Grandma sent them to live with Aunt Mary Anne because she’d already raised four girls, she wasn’t about to raise one more.

She’d said that Nicky was a darling little thing, but it would be better for her to be around the cousins. She’d said that she was too old to do this again and her pension wouldn’t feed four the way it fed one. She’d hugged Mom tight and kissed Nicky’s cheeks before seeing them off in the car, and she hadn’t told Aiden once that she loved him.

At age twelve, Aunt Mary Anne told his mother that it was time to get on her feet and get her own house.

She hadn’t said it was something to do with Aiden, because she’d screamed it at the top of her lungs when she was yelling about him bringing depravity into her house. She hadn’t listened when he told her the magazines belonged to Thomas and he hadn’t ever told her that the cigarettes belonged to Emily. She’d smacked him once across each cheek, and his mother hadn’t bothered to look sympathetic about the bruise it left behind.

At age sixteen, his mother kicked him out of the house because she’d found the picture of him kissing Damien.

Aiden hadn’t meant to leave it downloaded on the family desktop but he’d been thinking about making it his background for his blog. He’d tried to tell her he was gay but still believed in God even though it was a lie, and she hadn’t even let him get past the first two words before she’d screamed at him for being a sinner. He hadn’t gotten a chance to say goodbye to Nicky, and the only reason his mother let him leave with the car was because he’d paid it off himself so the title was in his name.

At age nineteen, his boyfriend cheated on him with at least ten other people and then had the gall to act like Aiden was the bad guy when he found out.

He had been sneaking around with other people for _years_ , men and women both, flagrant and perfectly positive that Aiden would never find out. He’d sneered at the idea that Aiden might have a reason to be upset about it, like five years of dating was nothing, even though Damien was twenty-eight now and should fucking know better. He’d kept the desktop he’d built and damn near everything else too, and he left Aiden with only his backpack and his car the same way he’d arrived three years ago.

Aiden wasn’t stupid.

There was a pattern to his life, a pattern he’d learned to recognize, a pattern he couldn’t break down into bite-sized chunks for anyone else. If he relied on _anyone_ for _anything_ , it would only bite him in the ass. Friendships, relationships, family—it was all a dirty trick to make it easier to hurt him down the line, because none of it would last. None of it was real.

Aiden knew everyone would leave him in the end, so he always left first.

* * *

His coffee was lukewarm between his hands now, and he grimaced down at it. Clara hadn’t said anything, letting him think through what he could say and what he _should_ say. She was the only person he’d really called a friend and _meant_ it in… his whole life, probably. So she deserved to know at least some of it.

But he couldn’t dump the whole thing on her, not when he could barely handle it himself. So the most recent things might be the easiest to explain.

“I think I should tell you about my last boyfriend,” Aiden said.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO HOW ABOUT THAT WATCH DOGS LEGION STUFF, HUH?

He hesitated before Jordi’s door, hand raised to knock. Since he’d run off without getting a key first, he couldn’t just walk in, but technically speaking, he should actually discuss this with Jordi first anyways. And the longer he stood out here, the more he was psyching himself out.

“Just tell him you have commitment issues and you’ll need a little space,” she’d told him, though there was a tightness around her eyes that hadn’t been there before he’d mentioned Damien. Maybe that was a mistake. Not one he could take back, though, not now that the words were out and he’d committed to saying them.

“Just like that?” he’d asked, doubtful.

“Well, it can’t be worse than the bullshit you spun him before you left,” she’d said pragmatically before shoving him out of the cafe with a demand that he text her once the dust settled.

So here he was. Not doing that.

“Fuck,” Aiden muttered to himself, before firming up his shoulders and knocking on the door. Confident. Not at all like a guy who’d had a panic attack at the idea of moving in with his… what, rival-with-benefits? Fuck-acquaintance? Were they friends?

When Jordi swung the door open, it was with an unamused expression. So things were off to a good start. Aiden might have burned this bridge before he could even try crossing it, that was always great.

“I have issues,” he said, seriously.

“No shit?” Jordi rolled his eyes, then grabbed the front of Aiden’s sweater and tugged him inside.

He let himself be dragged all the way to the couch before shaking his way free, fingers running nervously over the aching knob of his wrist. His stuff was still in his car, but that was probably for the best. There was no guarantee that Jordi’s offer was still open. “I mean it. I… panicked, when you said I could move in here.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out,” Jordi said dryly, disappearing into the kitchen. He came back a couple seconds later, setting a mug of coffee in front of Aiden before sitting down with his own. “Alright, you’ve got a speech prepared. Let’s hear it.”

Well, that didn’t help. All the things Aiden wanted to say left his head in that moment, running off along with his common sense. The stupid, juvenile part of him wanted to shove Jordi down and make out with him instead, just pretend that this was another time for them to fuck between completing schoolwork, to pretend like he was just staying the night and then _keep_ pretending until it was something real.

He took hold of his libido and put it in the corner where it belonged, then sipped at his coffee and hoped the caffeine wouldn’t give him jitters. The condo parking lot was small enough—and visible enough from the security guard’s desk—that he didn’t feel comfortable lighting up out there. Running away from Jordi to go smoke on the balcony was probably a bad idea too.

Fuck, okay, he was stalling. With a grimace, Aiden rubbed at his cheek, then said, “My last boyfriend wasn’t… fantastic. As a person, or in any other way. So if I do move in with you, I need some ground rules for both of us.”

“Are we dating now?” Jordi asked, voice neutral. No indication of how he felt about the idea. Damn it.

“If we keep having sex and live in the same place, I think we need to date for my own sanity. Which sounds dumb when I say it that way, but—look, I know this sounds crazy. I know I sound crazy. If you want to rescind the offer, I get that. But I can’t just jump into this without questioning it.”

Jordi blew out a sigh, then draped himself over the back of the couch, propping his chin on one hand. He didn’t look annoyed anymore, but he did look tired. Maybe about as tired as Aiden felt. Both of them weren’t taking this well—how could they possibly move in together?

This was a mistake. This was a fucking mistake. He should just get up and leave, live in his car for a couple weeks and find someplace to rent, never call Jordi again and just pray he didn’t see the man around on campus.

“Okay, hit me. What are the ground rules?” Jordi asked.

Aiden took a couple careful breaths, pulling his thoughts back in line out of the frantic scramble they were running in. “Uh. Exclusivity is one. I mean, I haven’t—I’ve been too busy with you and school to be sleeping around this semester, but I’m not assuming you were the same. It was casual before, but it wouldn’t be casual now, so… I’m monogamous. In relationships. It’s kind of a big deal for me.”

“Sounds like your last boyfriend was a little less than ‘not fantastic’,” Jordi said grabbing his mug of coffee and sipping at it. “Works for me though. Counterpoint: you’re not paying rent as long as you’re living with me. That’s my rule.”

The relief Aiden felt at that was quickly followed by a wave of embarrassment. Was he really that hard on his luck? Was it that _obvious_? If Jordi was going to just view this was a charity case, he wasn’t going to stick around for that. “I can pay.”

“Yeah, I don’t give a shit if you _can_ , I’m not _letting you_ is the thing. We’re gonna be dating. I don’t make my boyfriend pay rent.” Jordi’s expression was set, which meant he wasn’t budging. Aiden grimaced, but conceded the point.

“Fine, but I’m still working. That means sometimes I’ll have weird hours, or I’ll come in at weird times. Just because I don’t have to pay _you_ doesn’t mean I don’t have bills, and I’m not letting you pay me off again—that was a one-time deal,” he said, getting the uncomfortable feeling that he ought to be writing all this down somewhere.

“I can work with that. I’ll do all the cooking, but that means you’d better be baking me stuff and helping with dishes. I hate dishes, and you made me _pie_. I demand a tithe of pies.”

Aiden barked out a laugh, rubbing at his mouth afterwards like he could wipe the smile off. If Jordi wanted pies, he’d get all the pies he could fucking dream of for getting Aiden out of this spot. “Fine. Pies I can do. I’m smoking on the balcony and I reserve the right to stock beer in the fridge.”

“You’re gonna teach me how to clean a bathroom because that shit is _way_ harder than it looks,” Jordi said, slowly smiling.

“I want a desk in the office,” Aiden said, finding himself smiling back.

“You have to help me pick out extra sheets and towels so we’re not doing laundry every hour of the day. Deal?” Jordi’s grin was wide. Infectious. Comforting.

“Deal.”

* * *

In some ways, moving in with Jordi was really, really easy. He’d unpacked the first night, and Jordi had cleared out a small dresser in the monster of a walk-in closet he seemed faintly dismissive of. Aiden’s clothes hadn’t fit in more than the top two drawers, but he appreciated the gesture. Since he’d mostly relied on Abigail and Dusan to fill the fridge and pantry, it was easy enough to learn Jordi’s kitchen setup and food habits—with Jordi doing all the cooking, that meant Aiden just had to figure out where the cooking utensils went before anything else. The balcony view wasn’t anything special, but none of the neighbors got mad at him smoking there the way they’d gotten mad at him smoking in the doorway of the apartment building.

In other ways, it wasn’t so easy.

The problems started in the morning, the way problems always fucking did. Jordi, it turned out, was _way_ more of a health nut than he’d led Aiden to believe. The bullshit about him only eating gluten-free because of celiac didn’t begin to touch the fucking juicer he made half his breakfasts in, the condo had a gym that Jordi visited every morning now that they didn’t have a lab class at o’dark thirty, and if Aiden was _allowed_ to put beer in the fridge, he still got a lecture about his goddamn liver for drinking a couple every night.

The beer was one thing, but the coffee and the cigarettes were another. Just because Jordi owned a very fancy coffee machine that he used didn’t mean he _approved_ of Aiden’s caffeine intake. As if it was his goddamn right to approve or disapprove of _anything_ in Aiden’s diet. And the less said about the cigarettes, the better—because if Jordi said a single goddamn thing about his cigarettes, Aiden was going to stuff his entire ashtray down Jordi’s _goddamn_ throat.

They hadn’t picked him up a desk yet because it had only been three days since he’d moved in and they’d been feeling out each other’s habits, but that just meant that Aiden was working on various personal projects in the living room while Jordi watched soap operas and romcoms with every indication that he _enjoyed_ them. They grated on Aiden, the artificial drama and the shitty jokes going hand in hand with an uneasy amount of cracks about men. Probably said something about his underlying misogynistic tendencies or something, but he could only handle so much estrogen on the screen.

And Jordi had this bad habit of treating him like he was helpless. Not financially—no, the stupid fucker had figured _that_ little trigger of Aiden’s out pretty fast, so he hadn’t tried to offer him money again. But physically? It didn’t matter that Aiden had been handling his loose joints and nerve pain for years, Jordi kept trying to help. Kept jumping to his feet to stop him when he wobbled, asked him if he needed something for the pain when Aiden banged his wrist on the coffee table and favored it for the next half hour, handed over his braces any time it looked like Aiden was going to do something slightly strenuous.

It was fucking _annoying_  was the problem.

The health shit, the soap operas, the ways Jordi’s little control freak tendencies came to light, that Aiden could deal with. Eventually. But the babying wasn’t something Aiden was willing to put up with, not long term. The rest of it was just a bunch of _quirks_ but this was a direct attack on Aiden’s ability to be independent.

He had not taken care of himself since he was fucking ten just to be told that he couldn’t handle it _now_.

The fourth morning after his move into Jordi’s place dawned clear and cold, winter finally settling in hard and true. Snow was one thing. This cold front was something else entirely, and Aiden could feel it down to his ankles the moment he woke up. Jordi rolled out of bed, leaving behind a puddle of warm, and Aiden rolled into it because fuck if he was going to let it go to waste when he needed all the help he could get with his shitty joints.

Of course, Jordi noticed. And of course, Jordi just had to ask, “You need me to kick the heat up or something? I can grab your wraps out of the drawer.”

Aiden’s tenuous hold on his temper finally snapped.

“I am _not_ a goddamn _child_ ,” he snarled, sitting up despite the way it let the cold into his little cave. “If I need my fucking wraps, I will _get_ my fucking wraps, and I can do it all by myself like a big boy!”

The dumb look of shock on Jordi’s face only served to make him angrier, because of _course_ Jordi wouldn’t look at it like that. And he’d probably say something about just wanting to help, and he’d get into a goddamn _snit_ about Aiden’s temper, because that’s just how things _went_. God forbid Aiden have a sense of self-reliance about _anything_.

Jordi did none of that. He sat back down on the edge of the bed, half-reached for Aiden’s hand before clearly deciding better of it, and carefully said, “Ohhhh-kay. I don’t know what the hell I did to piss you off, but maybe we should talk about that?”

“I swear to god, if you use anything out of a Psych 101 class on me, I will piss on your pillow in the middle of the night,” Aiden said, feeling off-kilter and furious because of it. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go and he didn’t like the abrupt sensation of having broken something without even realizing.

“Jesus, I’m not trying to fake therapy you or anything, I just don’t want you to pop the deadbolt on me while I’m downstairs lifting weights.” Jordi rolled his eyes and the simple act of slight disrespect made Aiden feel infinitely better about the stupid fight they were about to have.

“Well, if you don’t want to _fake therapy_ me, maybe consider extending to courtesy to _fake physiotherapy_ - _ing_ me as well.” Before Jordi could get a word in edgewise, he snapped, “I _know_ that’s not a real word, don’t even say it. I mean it, Jordi. I’m not a fucking child, I know how to take care of myself.”

A look of incredulous outrage spread over Jordi’s face. “I’m sorry, are you—are you mad because I’m being _nice_ to you? Is that seriously a fucking thing that’s happening here? Because, let me tell you, it’s novel at least! ‘Gee, Jordi, why did your first boyfriend break up with you?’ I don’t know, apparently I was too _nice_ to him!”

“Break _up_ with you?” Aiden sputtered, the covers pooled around his waist. “Who the _fuck_ said anything about breaking up? I ask you to treat me like a goddamn adult and now we’re breaking up? Jesus christ!”

“Well, how the fuck am I _supposed_ to take this? I asked if you wanted the heat up and you started yelling at me out of the blue! Every time a girl’s done this to me it’s because she decided that two weeks of dating was too much!” Jordi’s face was flushed with anger, black eyes bright with it. It made him bright, animated, and absurdly attractive for all the wrong reasons.

“Give me a little fucking credit!” Aiden yelled, despite the fact that all he could think about now was having Jordi’s deliciously warm body draped over his and fucking the ache out of his bones. “I’m not going to break up with you, I just want you to stop being so fucking _touchy_ about me!”

“I’m touchy? _I’m_ touchy?!” Jordi yelled back, jabbing a finger in Aiden’s chest as his muscles tensed under his pale skin. “You’re yelling at me for being nice and _I’m_ the fucking _touchy_ one?!”

“I am not fucking yelling at you!” Aiden shouted in absolute defiance of reality before grabbing Jordi’s arm.

The reaction was instant, all the martial arts Jordi liked to brag about kicking in at once. Before Aiden realized what was happening, he was on his front, pinned against the mattress with Jordi’s arms keeping him from moving. In theory, at least, because Aiden could feel where Jordi’s grip wasn’t tight enough around his shoulders and he knew he could dislocate his way out of this situation if he had to.

A second later, Jordi let go, swearing under his breath as he sat up. “Fuck, Aiden, I’m—”

He twisted underneath Jordi’s legs, sitting up and grabbing the other man’s face to kiss him without letting him could apologize. Jordi only hesitated for a moment before he was kissing back, burying his fingers in Aiden’s hair and then falling forward again, this time pinning him for an entirely different reason.

Their hands tangled and got in the way when they both reached for the lube at the same time, Jordi laughing incredulously as Aiden groaned in irritation into his mouth. But it was easier to let Jordi have it, let Jordi hitch one of Aiden’s legs up over his hip, let Jordi lube himself up and push in all at once. Aiden let him do all the real work, choosing instead to wrap his arms around Jordi’s neck and keep him from going anywhere.

He was so fucking _warm_ , all the time, hair and muscles and _weight_ all conspiring to make Aiden most comfortable when he was underneath his stupid fucking boyfriend. It was like having a nice comforter that he could have sex with. Even when it was trying to smother him.

When Aiden came, he didn’t let go, instead tightening his legs around Jordi’s waist to keep him from leaving. It made Jordi bend over him with intent, made him bury his face in Aiden’s neck and thrust frantically as he chased his own orgasm. Even without the haze of afterglow and the sparks of an oversensitized body, Aiden figured he’d always love feeling Jordi shudder against him when he finally came a few minutes later. There was just something about having another man fall to pieces on top of him.

And then he was stuck there, Jordi’s cock softening inside him, covered in sweat and abundantly aware that they’d fucked it out after having a screaming match.

“So,” Aiden said carefully, running his fingers through the mess of black strands pressed against his cheek, “I might have overreacted a little bit.”

“You think?” Jordi’s voice was muffled by the pillow and the skin of Aiden’s shoulder. His palms were running over the length of Aiden’s thighs in a restless, constant motion, like he was trying to soothe himself by touching Aiden’s body.

“You did too, so shut up.” He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut until stars sparked behind his eyelids. His ankles were still pissed at him, and frankly his hips weren’t too happy either, but Jordi’s hot body pressed into his leeched so much of the cold out of his bones.

Jordi sighed too, then shifted his weight as he pulled out. As he rolled, he dragged Aiden with him, one arm slinging around Aiden’s back as the other curled around the meat of his thigh and squeezed. He looked tired when Aiden opened his eyes, but he also looked resigned. Like he still expected them to break up for some reason.

“I mean it, Jordi,” Aiden said, propping his chin on the swell of one well-formed pectoral. “We both freaked out over stupid shit. I’m not breaking up with you.”

“I’m not trying to treat you like a kid,” Jordi said in return, hand curling warm and soothing over the angry ache of Aiden’s hip.

It would be unfair to point out all the ways Jordi _did_ treat him like that anyways. Especially since Aiden was pretty sure that his meter for registering bullshit was a little skewed—somehow, he’d fallen into the bad habit of bracing for a snide remark instead of genuine concern, and that made his reading of things a little wonky.

Still. Some stuff he could point out.

“If I need help from you, I’ll ask,” he said gently as he could.

“Will you?” Jordi asked, and then cut Aiden off when he opened his mouth, “No, I mean it. _Will_ you? You don’t like asking for help. I get that. Can you promise you’ll _actually_ do it if you need it?”

“I can promise. And if I’m breaking up with you, I’ll tell you that—I won’t start it with a fight about the fucking heat getting turned on.” Aiden’s lips twisted in something not quite like a smile, but either way, he felt Jordi relax underneath him. “I need you to lay off on the cigarettes too. You hate that I smoke. Okay. You hate that I drink as much as I do. That’s fair. But—Jordi, sometimes it’s the only thing that helps anymore.”

Jordi’s eyebrows came down, but the frown he wore was thoughtful, not angry. “Why haven’t you gone to a doctor about this thing with your joints?”

“With what insurance?” Aiden asked dryly.

“I thought the whole point about the ACA was being able to _get_ insurance,” Jordi said, but there wasn’t much heat behind it. Slumming it or not, he seemed to grasp the nuances of why Aiden might choose not to insure anyways.

“Yeah, well. Not like any doctor would believe me. Come on, at my age? I’d be called drug seeking. You know that.”

Jordi grunted. “Got a point. Fine. I’ll lay off the cigarettes and the beer for now. But if we’re still dating in a year, I’m putting you on my insurance and getting you to a doctor.”

Like that would ever happen. Aiden smiled anyways, pressing a kiss to Jordi’s collarbone. “Deal.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Vindart because I’m both morally and legally obligated to dedicate any IKEA chapter to her.

He pulled into the parking lot with Jordi in his passenger seat gazing up at the big blue exterior of the IKEA with trepidation. The desk battle had come down to the fact that Aiden insisted on buying it himself and therefore was going to the most affordable place for him to find one he liked—there were a lot of times when he would buy things online, but desks weren’t one of them.

Since Jordi had used his veto on Craigslist, that left this.

“How fucking big _is_ this place?” Jordi asked, shutting the car door with a gentleness that belied his usual attitude. They’d taken Aiden’s sedan because Jordi’s coupe had shit-all for trunk space.

“Uh, pretty fucking big.” Aiden adjusted the straps on his wrist braces as they walked across the parking lot, feeling out how much extra support they gave. Nothing perfect, but it would help.

Though he got a sidelong glance, Jordi didn’t ask about the braces, and Aiden was grateful for it. He hadn’t said anything when Aiden was wrapping his knee and ankles either, though it was obvious he _wanted_ to. The fact that Jordi was willing to bite his tongue on this, just because Aiden _was_ touchy over people judging him for his shit joints, was… nice. Really nice.

He kept waiting for the second shoe to drop.

No point in looking for another fight just because the first one hadn’t ended in complete disaster, though. He had a bad enough problem with detonating his relationships with people _without_ looking for reasons to fuck up this one. If Jordi was actually going to try and see this through, Aiden wanted to see this through too.

“Wait, it’s two fucking stories? I thought this was like one of those home improvement stores, the kind with birds and shit in the rafters.” Jordi twisted as they came through the front doors, craning his head around to stare at the play area. “Is that a fucking—it has a daycare attached?”

“Would you rather have three-year-olds underfoot while we’re furniture shopping?” Aiden asked, sliding his hand up the back of Jordi’s jacket as he steered them towards the escalator up.

“Of course not I—there a _map_? We need a map?” Jordi’s bewilderment only deepened as they reached the beginning of their trek, and he kept twisting to look around at the little display apartments set up to show off the merits of the fiberboard furniture.

“Well, we might not _need_ it, but it’ll be useful,” Aiden murmured, picking one up and grabbing a pencil for good measure. In truth, he’d never actually been in one of these stores either, but he’d heard the merits of the furniture often enough from Marcus and Kat to at least try it. If it was cheaper than Walmart for a better quality, that was good enough for him.

And already, the prices looked pretty fucking good. Everything in the model apartments was carefully tagged with names, the locations in the bottom floor warehouse listed with aisle and bin number along with the serial number for the piece. Prices were listed as well, absolutely nothing hidden, and shit—it’d eat up his usual paycheck for two months, but he could furnish an entire apartment on this. It would hurt at first, sure, but he _could_.

“What the hell, why does all this look _good_?” Jordi pushed down on a couch cushion, then plopped down on it. He seemed shocked when it was comfortable, and after a moment of internal debate, Aiden sat down next to him and stretched his legs out, staring at the fake television above the sleek, wall mounted cabinets.

“Because they make an effort?” He grinned, then elbowed Jordi. “I know we’re here for desks, but you want to look at everything now, don’t you.”

“Uh, you better fucking believe I do. I swear to god, if my interior designer ripped me off, I’m gonna flip my shit.”

Aiden laughed as Jordi heaved himself up, then took the offered hand without complaint. “Well, I’m betting your stuff is probably higher quality. And, let’s be honest with ourselves Jordi, it’s a nice couch but not nice enough to fuck on.”

“Fair point,” Jordi said, sliding his arm around Aiden’s waist as they turned onto the marked path through the store. The first couple living rooms weren’t totally to his taste, but as they moved into darker, more neutral tones, Aiden started pointing out ones he liked. Jordi’s avaricious gaze was locked on the series of sofas laid out for people to test, but he was willing enough to make muted noises of acknowledgement for the ones Aiden pointed at.

It was cute. Aiden laughed again, then gently detached himself from Jordi’s grip. “Okay, go play on the couches. I’m going to look at the way this desk is set up over here.”

“I’ll be back,” Jordi said, like a fucking liar, before making a beeline for the first sectional he could see.

The desk he was looking at was pretty nice, albeit a bit large for his purposes. The shelving next to it wasn’t the same mash of Swedish, which meant it was definitely a seperate piece, but it looked like the price, all together, was still well within his range. Dark wood, heavy but not too heavy, with the smooth feel of a wood grain design laminated over the fiberboard in question. He wasn’t so in love with it that he had to have it now, but it was a strong contender.

He rapped his knuckles against the top of it, then squinted at the chair. Not terribly comfortable, and bad for his joints, no doubt. That was fine. Not everything was going to be a winner right out of the gate.

The model setup next cubicle over also had a desk, so Aiden examined that one as well. Too ornate, too light-colored, no under the desk cabinets but with a hutch on top—not great for how he’d use it, and it’d be damn ugly in the office that Jordi had set up. He wasn’t too fond of the decoration in this little area either, even though he understood the intent to mimic a dormitory room. Whatever college grad had designed it had shitty taste in furniture.

Jordi, when Aiden walked back out into the main area, was facedown on a massive couch. The thing was wide enough and long enough to be a bed, two massive square cushions with a low back. It was a hideous shade of yellow, and Jordi looked ridiculous in his elegant black jacket and slacks, sprawled out across the ugly fabric.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked dryly, nudging Jordi’s leg with his foot.

“They don’t _let_ you play on the furniture the places I’ve shopped before,” Jordi said, voice thick with euphoria. He’d seen the face of God, and it was apparently embedded somewhere deep in washable cotton face of an IKEA couch cushion.

“I’m glad you’re having fun. Come on, we have to pass through the tables and shelving before we reach the desk area, and there’s a whole segment of bedrooms before we get there.” He nudged Jordi’s leg again. “Are you dead? Are you dying?”

“You’re a rude fucker, you know that?” Jordi’s head popped up and he was grinning, scrambling to his feet before grabbing Aiden’s hand. “I bet the mattresses here _suck_.”

“I bet you’re right,” Aiden said with a grin of his own, Jordi’s obvious glee infectious.

The model bathrooms got a brief tour, and then the selection of extra display living rooms near the beds. Jordi’s fingers were warm where they twined with his, and Aiden found himself treating this as much like an adventure as Jordi was. They weren’t merely _viewing_ the bedframes, they were _exploring_ them. The massive dresser-wardrobe combination that was cleverly hidden as a wall wasn’t just an interesting bit of furniture, it was a brand new discovery from a lost era.

Aiden pointed out the bed with drawers underneath it and Jordi showed off the variations on the wondrous wardrobe. Aiden found the best version of the floating cabinets while Jordi managed to find ten different combinations of cloth drawers to fit in a shelving unit. Aiden flopped into a comfortable lounge chair and Jordi spun in a desk chair over to him, beaming the whole time.

“Oh, shit. Desks,” Jordi said at about the same time Aiden was thinking of finding a model apartment secluded enough to make out in. But, unfortunately, desks. Desks were more important.

“My laptop isn’t that big but I want something with decent storage.” Aiden slid his arm around Jordi’s shoulders, feeling the heat pumping off of him. The range of desks had a few standouts, but the real thing on display was the customizable options—size, legs, color. The important things.

“So here’s a question for you: if you’re into the whole programming thing, why don’t you have a better computer?” Jordi’s hand spread warm over the small of his back, directing him towards a section of desks. Smaller ones, like Aiden had asked for.

“I used to have a desktop, but I lost it in the divorce,” Aiden said, trying to inject some humor into his voice. “And, well, a laptop is better to transport. Even before the shit with my roommates, I liked to be able to pack up and go.”

“Well, it’s not like I’m kicking you out anytime soon.” Jordi frowned at a slim, tall offering, the hutch screwed into the lean little desk underneath.

“Mm, true. They’re expensive to build, though. Maybe once I save up enough in a couple months.” Aiden twisted his lips, then turned them towards the more modular desks. “Okay, I want to write down the serials on these. Smallest top, drawers on one side, blank side on the other?”

“It’s your fucking desk, you get to decide how much you like it. Going with the ebony?”

“It’ll look better with your furniture, so yeah. I’m not gonna slap something super clashing into it, I know how much that would drive you wild.” Aiden gave him a grin, leaning over to use a desk for the surface as he wrote down all the information he needed.

“For you, I would _tolerate_ sapphire blue in my latte-themed office. Even though I’m clearly going with forest green as an accent. It’s, y’know, traditional.” Jordi’s hand slid lower, curling around the curve of Aiden’s ass without squeezing.

“You’re the sweetest man I ever met,” Aiden said with a roll of his eyes, straightening up and patting Jordi’s chest without dislodging the hand on his butt. “Help me pick out a chair that won’t clash, you lech.”

“The _Swedish_ man, you might say,” Jordi said with more glee than the shitty pun actually warranted, before snickering when Aiden thumped his chest harder.

“Desk chairs, and then we can go play in the kitchen area.” He pointedly ducked under Jordi’s arm and moved over to the desk chairs, trying to locate one that wouldn’t kill his hips. Most of them were pretty shit quality—not unsurprising—but there was one with a worthwhile cushion on the seat.

Jordi wrote down the aisle, bin, and serial numbers that Aiden read out, and then they went to play in the kitchen area.

The downstairs was more of a clusterfuck, people crowded around with carts as they picked up bits and bobs on their way to the warehouse. Since he wasn’t planning on buying anything but the damn desk and its associated chair, Aiden strode through it all as quickly as possible, Jordi fast on his heels. The mass of artwork just before the section of fake plants made Jordi slow and dawdle, but since he _wasn’t_ buying, he caught up before Aiden managed to pull a heavy box dolly out.

“We’re coming back here someday,” Jordi said, eyes bright and tone fervent.

“You are a goddamn child,” Aiden told him fondly, surprised by the affection in his own voice.

“C’mon, I bet this sucker can get some good airtime.” Jordi grinned wide, then turned the dolly towards the aisles and started walking. Aiden kept pace with him, list in hand.

Getting the boxes onto the dolly was a little bit harder than anticipated. The chair was child’s play, and Aiden was able to maneuver the desk top onto it, the box long and wide but not especially heavy. The first side was equally easy, but the side dedicated to drawers was a heavy son of a bitch. It was basically the same _size_ but it was at least twice the weight of the first side—and it was cumbersome because of it.

He damn near dropped it on his own toes and swore softly when he finally got it onto the dolly. “Fucker. That reminds me, do you have any screwdrivers or anything?”

“Jesus, be careful. Why would I have a screwdriver?” Jordi braced the dolly, rotating the heavy box around so that all the barcodes faced the same direction. He grabbed Aiden’s wrist and turned it like he could see it if something hurt him, and Aiden shook him off after tolerating the attention for a couple seconds.

“I’ll grab one of those little orange kits. Go ahead and start rolling this towards the checkout, I’ll meet you there.” On a whim, Aiden leaned in to press a quick kiss to Jordi’s cheek. Then he was off, going looking for the toolkits he’d seen scattered in neatly arrayed bins around the store.

By the time he made his way back to the front, Jordi had almost reached the clerk and was looking nervous about it. Up there, clustered with the rest of the shopping masses, his clothes stood out even more—the elegant wool jacket, the neatly pressed slacks, the shiny leather shoes, all of them practically screaming wealth. In his own worn sweater and well-loved jeans, Aiden felt a little drab next to him.

But hey, Jordi had picked him. That had to count for something. It wasn’t a matter of him lowering his standards anymore, not when he was helping Aiden buy furniture for the condo.

“You miss me?” Aiden asked, dropping the toolkits on the conveyor belt as Jordi rolled the dolly forward.

“I just didn’t want to risk you chewing me out for buying your desk.” Jordi let Aiden around to access the card pad with a pointed leer. He didn’t look at the price, but Aiden could see him stiffen at how cheap it was anyways.

“Well, if you ever want to replace yours, we know where to go,” he said with a grin, folding his receipt up and pocketing it before grabbing the small plastic bag with the toolkits in it.

It took a bit of planning to get the boxes into his sedan, not because they were too big but simply because they were kind of unwieldy and Aiden didn’t like having the long end of the desk top heaved over the top of his center console. There weren’t any better ways to arrange things though, not without leaving Jordi behind. After a few minutes of trying anyways, he finally admitted defeat and let Jordi heft the other three boxes into the trunk before shutting it. It was a short enough drive back at least.

Pulling into the condo’s parking lot was a strange feeling, especially when he pulled up to the gate instead of into a visitor spot. It slid open easily, rattling as it pulled back to let him through, and he carefully steered his way up through the levels in the garage. Still fucking weird, even after doing it twice already.

“Ah, shit, are we going to have to prop the door open for this?” Jordi asked beside him, twisting to squint at the boxes in the backseat like he wasn’t completely blocked off by the one between them. Aiden snorted softly, letting the feeling of strangeness disappear.

“Probably,” he said, carefully pulling into his space next to Jordi’s coupe. “If you can grab the bigger box, I’ll carry the smaller ones.”

“The smaller boxes are heavier, I’ll get those.” Jordi didn’t give him a chance to object, climbing out of the car once Aiden had it parked and popping the trunk. True to form, he’d propped the two smaller boxes on one shoulder already and the third under his other arm, grabbing the small plastic bag as well for good measure. That left Aiden with the largest box, which was a pain.

Groaning in annoyance, Aiden hefted the bigger box up and out, wobbling on his feet as he used the edge of his open trunk to lever it into his arms. It was _fucking_ difficult to lift, shaped exactly wrong for him to carry it, but he managed to shut the trunk and lock the car without dropping it at least. Little miracles.

“You had to leave me the big one?” he groused as he swung through the held open doors into the condo building, Jordi dodging around him to hit the button on the elevator.

“It’s not the heaviest, and _that_ one didn’t try to kill you when you were pulling it out. I’ll get the front door too, you want me to just drop this shit in the office?”

“I don’t think your downstairs neighbors will appreciate you dropping it, but yeah.” Aiden grunted as he hefted the broad, flat box a little higher, following Jordi more slowly the second time. Since the front door opened inwards, Jordi didn’t bother holding it—instead, he set his cargo down and disappeared back into the kitchen. Carefully, Aiden set his own box down as well, going back to lock the front door before he went to figure out what Jordi was doing.

Apparently, lunch.

Since Jordi was the one that cooked, Aiden didn’t bother going to the grocery with him; he fucking hated grocery stores, both conceptually and in practice, and just adding a couple baking ingredients to the list got him everything he needed. The side-effect of this was that he rarely, if ever, knew what the hell they were doing for a given meal. Jordi had a whole system for picking meals, and Aiden just accepted whatever ended up in front of him.

Stir-fry was the order of the day and Jordi flapped a hand at him when he realized Aiden was hovering. “Go, build your desk. Uh, if you need more space for it, you can just empty that shelf next to the long side of my desk, just set the shit by my chair. I’ll find a place for it.”

“You’re going to have to learn how to use a screwdriver eventually,” Aiden said.

But he still headed back to the office, cutting open the boxes and toolkits before carefully starting to sort all the parts associated with the damn thing. There was a massive difference in being told that he’d have to build it and facing down the cheerfully simplistic instructions along with about thirty eight screws in three different sizes. The count was right at least—no extras, none missing, and if the sides of the drawer unit weren’t labeled, then at least they were distinct enough in shape and pre-drilled holes for him to figure out which ones were being referenced in the pictures.

No way in hell this would fit next to Jordi’s desk without moving things though. Aiden had half-considered setting up on the opposite wall instead, but since Jordi had given him carte blanche to move the shelf, that was easier. And it gave him a chance to poke around, see what Jordi kept in his office—this was a room he’d never given much thought to before moving in, not when the bedroom was a hell of a lot more interesting. Usually.

Most of it was books, and not the books that Jordi kept out in the living room. _Those_ books were all paperback romance novels, the shitty four dollar kind he could pick up in a grocery store. The collection had steadily grown over the last semester too; what had started with maybe five books that Aiden remembered from his first night here was now a good sixteen or seventeen novels, all well-used. When the hell Jordi got time to read them, Aiden had no idea, but he’d clearly had plenty of it during the school year.

The books in the office were a different matter entirely. A few heavy textbooks, mostly on finance and economics with four from their classes last semester still stacked next to Jordi’s monitor, and a shockingly high number of paper journals. Economics again, which was weird, because that wasn’t exactly something Jordi had ever expressed interest in. Not to Aiden’s hearing, anyways. Way more fucking law books than any one man ought to own, and Aiden stacked those carefully next to Jordi’s chair without looking inside—the first one he opened had been very full of case law and very empty of hidden alcohol, so the rest were probably equally dry.

More paper journals, business-oriented and law review, and three file boxes. The first two were chock full of documents when Aiden poked his nose in them, and he wasn’t bold enough to actually start _reading_ that. Little bit over the line, even for him. The third, funny enough, didn’t have any files in it at all. It had a series of medals instead, more than Aiden could count at a glance, most of them made of heavy bronze and hung on various ribbons. There was also, tucked in the bottom, a glass-covered and framed diploma from Princeton University, for a Jordi Henry Laughton.

“...Huh,” Aiden said, sitting back on his heels. After a moment, he replaced the lid on the box and set it on top of the other two, turning the shelf sideways to get it out of the way. They could move it against the other wall once he was done building this desk.

He poked his head out of the office long enough to check that Jordi wasn’t coming, then pulled his phone out to look up the name.

A few social media accounts that hadn’t been updated in over a year. A bunch of news articles about him being the valedictorian of his graduating class. A brief mention of him in a local small newspaper changing his name. An interview, four weeks before that date, with a different small newspaper referencing his family in abstract, but not by name. As he got deeper into the search results, smaller awards started showing up—national debate team placements, scholarship awards, a list of private school lacrosse team members in a finalist lineup.

Aiden started to type in his previous last name alone, then paused. It wasn’t really his place to go digging like this, just because Jordi’s life was plastered on the internet against his own volition. ‘Jordi Chin’ didn’t turn up anything other than those name change articles, not even a passing attempt at a social media account. If Jordi wanted him to know this, he’d say something.

His fingers itched to finish the search, but Aiden firmly set his phone to the side and pulled over the pieces to the drawer set first. He’d build his desk and his chair,  _then_ decide if this curiosity was worth torpedoing his burgeoning relationship over.

He’d gotten two of the sides screwed onto the base and back when Jordi walked in with bowls of stirfry, settling down in a clear space after carefully navigating between piles of parts and half-constructed pieces. The drawers were still untouched and the other side and top hadn’t even been touched—Aiden would deal with all of it once the most complicated part was done first. He wasn’t going to object to food though, not when screwing pieces and parts together was surprisingly hard work.

“Why are you using your left hand?” Jordi asked as he handed over a bowl and a fork.

“Because I’m left-handed?” Aiden said, tone lifting in faint confusion. It was really good stir fry. He went from ‘hungry’ to ‘ravenous’ in about thirty seconds after his first bite.

Jordi stared at him, baffled, before scanning over everything Aiden had done. It wasn’t _much_ , but since neither of them were exactly handymen to begin with, Aiden felt pretty comfortable being proud of it. Now, getting the drawers and their runners on was a different question entirely, but it wasn’t like Jordi was going to stick around for that.

Eventually, after a couple minutes of eating in silence, Jordi finally said, “So you’re not fucking with me. You’re really left-handed?”

“Mm.” Aiden swallowed, then pointed his fork with his right hand. “It’s a right-handed world out there, you know. I guess I’m technically ambidextrous? It’s just a fucking pain to adjust everything for my left hand, and I learned to write with my right first anyways, so… Left-handed, right-handed presenting. Or whatever. Am I allowed to make that joke?”

“Probably not. Good joke though. How come you learned with your right?” Jordi set his bowl well out of the danger zone, then craned his head to look at the instructions. They were clear enough even for him.

“Dad thought the Devil wrote with his left hand, so he broke my arm when we started learning to write in school. Why did you change your last name from Laffton?” The question slipped out before Aiden could stop himself, the nagging thought that he could get the truth straight from the horse’s mouth overwhelming his good sense. It was dumb, when a quick search on the internet could tell him more, but—

“ _Law_ -ton,” Jordi corrected, draping himself over Aiden’s back and tucking his chin over Aiden’s shoulder. “That’s half the fucking reason right there. Everyone pronounces it wrong. It’s fucking annoying.”

“My bad,” Aiden said dryly, carefully setting his bowl on top of Jordi’s. The warm hand sliding under his shirt was tempting, but he really did want to know. If Jordi had graduated before coming out to Chicago, why take gen-eds at all?

“Other half was wanting to be someone different. Didn’t bother to transfer my school records over, so, you know. Found my diploma while you were snooping?” The hand under his shirt deliberately dragged over the curve of Aiden’s stomach, Jordi’s thumb toying with the line of hair trailing down into his hemline.

“Yeah. In my defense, you basically gave me the go ahead to look.” So, so tempting to lean into that touch, leave the desk for later and just arch into Jordi’s hands. It was obvious what he was aiming for and Aiden was usually the kind to indulge. All the same… “Here, you want to give my wrists a break and do the rest of these screws? The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can test the weight rating on it, right?”

“And you call me a lech,” Jordi said with a soft huff of laughter, pulling away and reaching for the screwdriver. Even if he’d never done it before, the instructions were pretty simple. Aiden leaned back to watch him with a smile, but the diploma with Jordi’s old name kept niggling at the back of his thoughts.

He’d brought that name up and Jordi had changed the subject lightning fast. He wouldn’t push, and for now he wouldn’t investigate further, but Aiden intended to remember that.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be half of a chapter, and then I spent two thousands words rhapsodizing about baking instead so... It's its own chapter now. But I guess that works out better for the pacing for the _next_ chapter, so all's well that ends well.

It was bitterly cold outside, cold enough that even in a sweater and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Aiden didn’t stay out smoking for long. Chicago was something beautiful with snow on the ground and lights still on in the rooms of some people who hadn’t finished wrapping presents yet. At three in the morning on Christmas Eve, Aiden couldn’t really fault them—he was in the same boat, after all.

He couldn’t sleep. Part of it was the weather, because sleeping in the winter was always harder, the cold eating into his joints with a vengeance. Mostly it was a lingering anxiety that woke him up close to midnight, when he and Jordi had gone to bed a bare couple hours earlier. Jordi was _still_ in bed now, snuggled into his pillow with only a sheet covering him. All the blankets had been piled up on Aiden’s side, because unlike _certain people_ , he wasn’t able to go without anything warming him up in the middle of fucking December.

Driven by restlessness, he headed back into the condo. The blanket was folded neatly and draped over the back of the couch while he pulled his laptop out of the office and opened up the webpage he’d covertly hunted out a couple days ago. Jordi hadn’t questioned anything Aiden tacked onto the grocery list, which was good, because Aiden hadn’t even been sure he was going to actually _use_ those ingredients until now. But, well, he hadn’t gotten Jordi a present.

Wasn’t even sure now if presents were appropriate. They were dating, sure, but only for a few weeks (although he was sure Clara would argue it had been months) and he wasn’t positive about the protocol here. Combine that with the fact that he was a little strapped for cash between the purchase of the desk and the Christmas present he’d left in Nicky’s checking account, and he’d been drawing up blanks for anything appropriate.

Like, ties. Jordi seemed like the kind of guy who’d be interested in ties. Or maybe cufflinks. Tie pins? Some kind of collectors set of Golden Girls, or Days of Our Lives, or… That was the problem, really. All the things he could think to _buy_ were impersonal, expensive, or both. He’d sent Clara an e-card with a tongue-in-cheek promise to be her personal chauffeur, and she’d sent him a photoshopped voucher for one free piercing on the body part of his choice, but he didn’t _know_ Jordi well enough to give him something free like that. And all the sex vouchers would be pretty much useless given how often Aiden climbed on Jordi’s dick anyways.

One offer to finger Jordi and induct him to the wonders of bottoming on Christmas. Ha. Maybe he should suggest Jordi give _him_ that, actually.

For lack of anything better, Aiden fell back on the tactic that had worked for him on Jordi’s birthday: baked goods. Since Jordi bought the ingredients, Aiden wasn’t dipping into his funds or driving more nights than usual, and since he’d liked the pie so much, Aiden was pretty sure it would go over well. But just one pie didn’t seem like enough. Cheap, almost. Not festive.

Aiden was going to make a fruitcake, but he wasn’t sure if Jordi liked fruitcake, and he’d semi-hysterically looked up if rum was gluten-free twenty minutes ago. (It was.) So he was also going to bake a pie, because pie seemed like a reliable fallback. But even if Jordi _did_ like the fruitcake and the pie, both of them had to sit for a while to be safe and… that’s why he was making cookies too.

Jesus, he was a fucking disaster. Shaking his head at his own idiotic scrambling, Aiden set the oven to preheat and started pulling out bowls and ingredients. Maybe he should ask for a stand-mixer for his birthday. Maybe he could spin it as something for Jordi’s benefit. Would that be asking for too much?

The cookie dough came first, because it was the simplest and he knew how to make sugar cookies by heart. Dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in the other, the butter and sugar creamed together by hand. Even though it made his wrists ache, he didn’t go looking for his wraps—at best, they’d get filthy, and at worst, it would interfere with his ability to mix. He slowly worked the wet ingredients in, then finally the dry ones, ending up with a sticky, malleable dough that acted like the real thing once he’d added an extra egg white to it.

He rolled two dozen little balls and set them on the baking sheets, then set _those_ aside. The cherries and candied fruits he dumped into a bowl, pouring rum over them before sticking the whole thing in the fridge. Since it had to go into the fridge as well, he started on the apple pie filling, carefully slicing the apples into paper-thin pieces that were eventually stacked into a plastic bag, poured over with sugar and cinnamon, shaken wildly, and then shoved in the fridge as well.

The oven beeped and Aiden put the cookies in, setting a timer on his phone before turning his attention to the pie crust. Sugar, flour, cubed butter, cut with the same methodical attention he’d turned towards creaming the butter for the cookies. He cracked an egg into it, then carefully measured water in, slowly working the dough into shape before rolling it into two slightly different balls and wrapping those in plastic wrap. Into the fridge, timer went off, cookies came out.

There was a rhythm to this, running multiple baking projects at once. It wasn’t just figuring out what to do first, it was fitting tasks into the spots of time between when on thing finished and the next began. It was a science, but it was also an art, like taking a computer to pieces and learning to fit it back together again. He wasn’t an expert at a lot of things, he wasn’t smart or exceptionally athletic or charismatic, but he was good with his hands. He was clever. And he could do this as easy as breathing, once he found the beat again.

He moved onto the dry ingredients for the fruitcake, mixing them together before moving on to cream butter and sugar together again. Jordi would probably have questions about how much butter he was going through, but as long as Jordi wasn’t up and micromanaging him, Aiden could handle questions. Vanilla, eggs, folding them in one by one until the mixture was creamy and rich, then he pulled the fruit out of the fridge and drained it, folding the liquid from the bowl into the batter too. Rum, and then a shot for himself.

The dry ingredients next, carefully stirred in until just so, and then the chopped mix of nuts and the rest of the fruit folded in with the same amount of care. Jordi had a loaf pan that Aiden chose to co-opt, greasing the interior of it with butter before pouring the batter in. With the oven already preheated, he was able to put it in and set another timer for an hour.

Flour on the granite counter, spread out until he was certain the dough wouldn’t stick. Aiden hunted out his pie tin, setting it to the side before grabbing the balls of dough he’d left to chill in the fridge. The larger one he molded into a disc before dropping it on the counter top, sprinkling the top of it with flour and grabbing his rolling pin. He rolled the crust out into a much larger circle, then gently flipped it into the pie tin, letting it sink into place before setting that to the side. 

The second crust got a similar treatment, though this time he didn’t move it onto the tin; this time he grabbed the small paring knife, sharp enough for his purposes, and began to cut it into strips. Might as well branch out a little, instead of sticking with the crusts he usually made. In theory, a lattice crust wouldn’t be that hard. It was just folding them in order, right? Of course it was. The bottom crust and the strips were both set into the fridge again, apple filling pulled out.

Thirty minutes on the timer, or thereabouts. Aiden flicked the light on inside the oven to squint at it, then shrugged to himself and assumed the internet recipe wasn’t bullshitting him. If it failed, he had two other things to fall back on.

He poured the liquid from the apple bag into a saucepan, then poured rum in as well. This was uncertain territory for him—Jordi’s kitchen was sovereign territory, and while he’d been given permission to bake in it, he wasn’t sure how far that extended. In a way, this was a little like pushing the boundaries of Jordi’s expectations: for him, for their relationship, for their mutual ability to share a living space together. They’d already had one dumb fight. Aiden supposed it was time to see if they’d have another.

It had been almost two hours since he’d started, but it was just as dark outside as it had been when he’d woken up. One of the drawbacks of winter; Aiden didn’t consider himself someone who needed the sun, not really, but the lack of it still ate at him. At least when it was overcast during the day, there was still _some_ light. And he’d been doing most of this in the dark, with nothing but his laptop screen and the light under the microwave to help him see. His fingers itched for a cigarette, but he was loathe to step outside again.

He compromised by pouring himself a glass of rum and stirring the sauce he was simmering on the stove. It finished thickening about the same time his timer went off, so he pulled it off the heat and reduced the temperature on the oven. Setting the sauce to the side, he went back to the cookies, cooled enough now for him to consider trying to frost them. Not _handmade_ frosting, because he wasn’t fucking crazy, but iced Christmas cookies were something everyone loved.

Using a butter knife, he methodically spread frosting on each cookie, trying to measure it out so that it wouldn’t run empty before he finished all of them. There wasn’t _quite_ enough for all the cookies, which meant he had no choice but to eat the last two with more rum, to test them. Obviously. They crumbled, but not in a way that suggested they were too dry, and Aiden hummed triumphantly.

Cookies set off to the side, he finally pulled the fruitcake out and carefully brushed rum over it while it cooled on a rack. The oven was turned up higher, and while it got up to temp, he pulled the individual parts of the pie out to build it up. Apple slices, tossed in flour before being spread out in the bottom crust, then the sauce he’d reduced, some cubed butter, and _then_ the carefully cut strips of pie crust, Aiden alternating the pieces with care. He didn’t want to fuck it up right at the end, so he took his time. It meant he was finished the same time the oven dinged again, letting him know it was ready.

Pie went in, everything else was cooling, and… that left cleanup. Just because he could, he poured himself more rum, setting his glass to the side as he started wiping down the counters and filling the sink with water and soap. He sipped at it while he scrubbed the bowls and saucepan down, stacking everything to dry on a towel. That ate up enough time for the first half of the baking process, so he turned the heat in the oven down and took his glass of rum out to the porch to smoke again.

The cold wasn’t quite so bad with alcohol warming his veins, his joints numbed by it in a way that didn’t ache. Still no hint of light in the sky, but it wasn’t like he could really expect that. It was at least another hour before sunrise, even if the busywork in the kitchen made him feel like it should be closer. He sighed, smoke and hot breath mingling into ghostly plumes in the frigid air, then knocked back the rest of his drink and stubbed the cigarette out.

He was squinting at the pie under the light of the oven when arms wrapped around his waist, Jordi’s body curving hot against his own. His chin pressed into Aiden’s shoulder and his voice was muzzy with sleep when he said, “So I guess I believe in Santa now.”

“Yeah?” Aiden asked, leaning back into the heat of Jordi’s body and relaxing from the instinctive tension that had slithered up his spine.

“I mean, he brought _me_ cookies. And smells like apple pie. And…” Jordi turned his head to squint at the fruitcake cooling on the counter. “Bread?”

“Fruitcake. I, uh, didn’t get you anything, so… Merry Christmas. I made you fruitcake instead. And cookies. And pie.” He huffed out a self-deprecating laugh, realizing how dumb he sounded. Frantically baking every damn thing that popped into his head just so that Jordi would… what, know Aiden liked being around him? Christ, he was a mess.

“Huh. How long have you been up?” Jordi’s hands spread over his ribs, warm and comforting. There was something deeply intimate about standing there in the dimly lit kitchen, Jordi’s face invisible but his intentions clear, something that had nothing to do with sex but left Aiden feeling wanted all the same.

With a sigh, he shut his eyes and let his head tip back, running his thumb over the hard line of muscle in Jordi’s arm. “Midnight, or thereabouts. Couldn’t really sleep and the fruitcake needs to sit for a day before we can eat it, so…”

“Damn. Don’t you have a party tonight?” The slow rise and fall of Jordi’s breath didn’t change, his voice still low and warm in the darkness. He was rocking slightly, just enough to match the rhythm of Aiden’s heartbeat.

“You’re invited, you know. And it doesn’t start until, like, six, apparently. Sitara was pretty clear about that.” Between the heat of Jordi’s body and the way he held Aiden close, it was getting harder to keep his eyes open. The rum probably wasn’t helping either—he’d lost track of how much he'd had sometime while drinking.

“Well, neither of us are gonna be going anywhere if you don’t catch some z’s,” Jordi murmured, his lips pressed to Aiden’s cheek. “How long is that gonna be in the oven for?”

Reluctantly, he cracked open his eyes to squint at the time. “Maybe another twenty minutes. I have a timer on my phone.”

“And after it’s out, think I can get you back in bed?” Jordi’s mouth slowly drifted lower, kisses trailing down the line of Aiden’s neck. When Aiden didn’t answer immediately, he lifted a hand and cupped his fingers around Aiden’s jaw, tugging his chin around and pressing a longer kiss to his lips.

Aiden let himself sink into it, into the slow draw of Jordi’s breath and the taste of mint on his lips. Jordi’s heartbeat thudded against his back, keeping time better than anything else, his other hand still curled lovingly around Aiden’s ribs. There was a feeling of weightlessness to the moment, the dark and the silence all bleeding into each other until all Aiden could think about was the way Jordi’s mouth fitted over his own.

His own hand hunted out Jordi’s where it splayed over his side, fingers entwining with Jordi’s as Aiden leaned more heavily into the curve of Jordi’s body. Jordi hummed against his lips, pushed his tongue lazily into Aiden’s mouth, then finally pulled away when the timer began to buzz. It took Aiden a few seconds to remember why he set it and a few seconds more to reluctantly detangle himself from Jordi’s grip and grab a towel to pull the pie out with.

He set it carefully on the cooling rack near the fruitcake, hearing the soft beep of Jordi’s oven getting turned off behind him. With the anxious energy no longer riding him, and the combination of Jordi’s body heat and the rum chasing the rest of the chill out of his bones, he realized he was _tired_. Not an unusual feeling, but one that hit him like a brick all the same. He’d burned up most of the night baking and it meant he might not even get real sleep if he decided to lay down, so maybe it was better not to nap at all and wait for the second wind of exhausted energy to hit—

“C’mon, bed,” Jordi said, flicking the microwave light off and wrapping an arm around Aiden’s waist. He didn’t give Aiden a chance to protest, dragging them both back to the bedroom where the dark curtains cut out the light leaking in from the city around them. The bed was still rumpled and unmade, Jordi’s sheets tossed to the side and Aiden’s blankets in a pile at the foot of the bed where he’d left them.

Aiden had pulled on some pajama pants that were ostensibly Jordi’s, but Jordi apparently hadn’t worn anything at all. Which wasn’t unusual for him—it was the reason Aiden felt comfortable stealing the soft pants to begin with. He skimmed them off his hips and dumped them on the floor with his sweater, rather than folding them both like he usually tried to, then hauled the blankets up over them both as he climbed into Jordi’s waiting arms.

“Wake me up in a couple hours,” Aiden said, surprised by the weary edge in his own voice.

Jordi snorted softly, but didn’t say anything one way or the other. His fingers pushed into Aiden’s hair, lazily petting until Aiden felt his eyes start to shut, the heat pumping off Jordi’s body caught by the blankets and wrapping around them both. The last thing he remembered was Jordi whispering, “Merry Christmas to you too.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Help me bully Vin into finishing stripper!Aiden art because I'm going to be forced to write for it at gunpoint if she does.
> 
> Also next chapter's going to be a _doozy_. I've had it written for a while and y'all, I've been so excited to post it, you have no idea.

“Not a bad neighborhood,” Jordi said as they pulled up on the side of the road, parking on the curb near a black sedan Aiden knew belonged to Clara. The nice thing about most of DedSec being stuck on public transportation was that Sitara’s driveway was empty most of the time, meaning that the few of them with cars weren’t out in the cold. Metaphorically, at least.

“Sitara owns the house.” He swung himself up out of the car, grabbing one of the plates of cookies. It would give Jordi something to munch on, if nothing else in there was safe, and it helped reduce the sheer mass of baked goods Aiden had made for him. “She’s in one of your classes, I think? Or, was. Kat and Horatio live here too, and I think Josh stays on occasion.”

“Sitara—hair dyed purple? Really invested in the concept of feminist genre films but rejects the existing conceit of feminist romance?” Jordi’s eyes were narrowed, his expression calculating as he followed Aiden up the sidewalk.

“What? I don’t know. Yes her hair is purple. Please don’t get into a fight about soap operas at the Christmas party,” Aiden said, giving Jordi a _look_ before knocking on the door.

Whatever response Jordi was formulating was cut off by Horatio’s amiable smile when he opened the door, a santa hat set at a jaunty angle on his head. “Hey man, we were wondering when you’d get here. Mario Party’s already started.”

“Traffic,” Aiden said, truthfully, though it also left out the fact that he’d slept for almost ten hours and had to scramble to get ready. “Where should I put these?”

“Kitchen counter, Kat moved her bartending setup to the game room to make space for all the food. We’ve got hot chocolate too, and some of those weird little sausage things?” Moving out of the way, Horatio swung his hand wide. There was a wall of noise that he’d been blocking, the sound of it almost drowning out his last words as Aiden stepped inside.

Wrench, Marcus, Josh, and Snick were all crowded in the living room, Josh curled up on a sitting chair while the other three shoved each other around on the couch. There was a minigame of some sort playing on the screen, Wrench screeching about cheaters as Dry Bones crumpled to his death, and Sitara was leaning over the back of Josh’s chair to cheer him on.

Past the kitchen, Kat was belting out holiday songs off tune while Defalt looked pained beside her, a violently green and festive drink in his hands. Clara was nowhere to be found, but if they stuck around long enough, Aiden figured she’d show up again. Absolutely no one stopped to greet them, which was nice—he always hated being stared at when he showed up for something late.

Behind him, he could feel Jordi tense up. Horatio, nice guy that he was, didn’t say anything about it, only clapped Jordi on the shoulder and said, “It’s great to meet you, man. You want me to grab you something to drink?”

“Jack and coke if you’ve got it,” Jordi said smoothly, his fingers hooking in the back of Aiden’s jeans like he was afraid to lose him. It was a tiny house. Not like Aiden was going anywhere.

“Yeah, I’ve got you. I’m Horatio, my girlfriend Kat’s the one mixing drinks, and the rest of us I’ll leave to Aiden.” With a grin and a small salute, Horatio headed back to the game room, laughing as Kat hit a particularly grating note. Unlike poor Defalt, his musical sensibilities seemed immune to her singing.

“Somehow this is both smaller and _louder_ than I was expecting,” Jordi said, his voice low and very close to Aiden’s ear. The heat of his body was wrapped around Aiden’s back, his fingers still curled in one of Aiden’s belt loops. He sounded—he sounded nervous. Which was insane, because Jordi of all people had no reason to be nervous. He was charming as hell when he put his mind to it.

“It’s a small group of friends,” Aiden said back with a small grin, tipping his head towards the kitchen. “I’m going to go set these down. Go say hi to Sitara, she looks like she’s not completely invested in the game.”

The look he got from Jordi was both doubtful and distrusting in spades, but Jordi unhooked his fingers and went. Now freed, Aiden swung into the kitchen to set the cookies on the counter, grabbing a plate and loading it up with snack foods. All things considered, this wasn’t any more formal of a party than they usually had—less, actually, since there weren’t any specific group activities planned. In Sitara’s words, it was a ‘show up and fuck around’ kind of thing. Which was why he’d asked if Jordi could come. That sort of relaxed atmosphere seemed like something Jordi would prefer.

Of course, now he was questioning that a little. DedSec _was_ loud, and exuberant, and inclined to both make even more noise when they were excited about something. Maybe something more low key would’ve been better?

Before he could start panicking about the mess he was making of this, a delicate hand stole the plate from him. Clara smiled at the offended noise he made, then cast a critical eye over Jordi where he’d managed to get into a heated debate with Sitara over… something. “Well, he’s pretty much the opposite of my type, so it figures he’d be yours.”

“Wow, thanks,” Aiden said with a roll of his eyes. “Can I assume you approve?”

Her smile widened, lighting up her eyes. “If he makes you happy, then I approve. Even if it _did_ take you months to realize it makes you happy. I’m going to go tell him you were having fits over how much you liked him.” 

“Wait, fuck, _Clara_ —” Sputtering, he grabbed Jordi’s drink from a startled Horatio and followed close at her heels, trying to steal his plate back without tipping it all over them both.

“Jordi!” she called, interrupting the argument (Lifetime movies and their role in women dominated spaces, apparently). “Aiden has told me so much about you! I’m Clara.”

“Uh, hi,” Jordi said, squinting in suspicion. Whatever he saw on Aiden’s face transformed the suspicion to something like unholy glee. “How _much_ exactly?”

“Do you want the play-by-play of his post-coital panic attack the first day of school?” she asked serenely, handing him the plate.

* * *

Christmas morning dawned bright, early, and hungover. Jordi, with the absolutely bullshit energy of someone who exercised for _fun_ , was up and out of bed the second sunlight crept in through the windows—later than sunrise because it took awhile for the light to penetrate into the alleyways between the buildings, but still not late enough.

If he could have slept through it, Aiden would have. Since he couldn’t, he stayed bundled up on the edge of the bed and watched Jordi do push ups instead, sarcastically critiquing his form.

All in all, there were worse ways to wake up.

“What’s more Christmas-y, crepes? Pancakes? _Omelets_? Omelets don’t feel very Christmas to me,” Jordi said when he finally stopped flexing for his audience and climbed up off the floor. There was a faint sheen of sweat over his skin, disappearing into the wiry hair on his chest and gleaming over the curve of his shoulders.

“I cannot believe you’re talking about food at me,” Aiden groaned, dragging his blankets further over his face. “How are you this fucking _active_? You drank as much as I did last night.”

“Uh, unlike you, I actually have some heft to me. Not a chronic alcoholic though, so I think that puts us on level.” He frowned, plucking the blankets off of Aiden’s head, and critically examined his complexion.

Despite all his complaining, the dull ache in the back of his skull wasn’t that terrible. Aiden knew that he’d probably shake off the last of it when he actually got up and did something productive with his life but—it was Christmas. Being unproductive and wallowing in his own misery was practically a tradition by now. Like a present, if the present was Jack Daniels at eight in the morning instead.

“I’m dying and it’s your fault,” Aiden said, unable to stop the way his lips twitched into a smile.

“I’ll make sure to melt s'mores on your funeral pyre,” Jordi said with a crooked smile of his own, dropping the blankets and heading out of the bedroom. “You didn’t pick a breakfast food!”

“Pancakes!” Raising his voice made the dull ache a little worse, but it was worth it to hear Jordi laugh as he walked away. The gluten free pancake mix was stowed up somewhere other than Aiden’s all-purpose flour, so it’d survived the frantic attack of baking he’d been struck by yesterday. Which was embarrassing to think about, but Jordi had been so touched by it that Aiden couldn’t really regret how much he’d made.

At least, as long as he wasn’t expected to help eat it all. His sweet tooth wasn’t strong enough for that.

Groaning softly to himself, he finally unwrapped and stumbled into the bathroom to rinse his face off. The stubble on his cheeks was just awful, but not awful enough for him to do anything about. It was too cold for him to linger on the tile, especially when the smell of coffee was wafting through Jordi’s condo, so he didn’t bother showering or shaving. Grabbing a couple ibuprofen and swallowing them with the water cupped in his palms was about the amount of self-care he was willing to do today.

Maybe he’d curl up on the couch with Jordi and watch shitty Hallmark movies. Most of the time, he couldn’t stand the damn things, but after the debate last night, he wanted to at least give it a shot. And it would be an excuse to hang around inside, ignoring the rest of the world and the rest of the expectations that came with the holiday. Not like he had anywhere better to be. Not like…

He pulled on a shirt and a pair of pajama pants, digging up one of Jordi’s robes and wrapping it around himself. The coffee was done, so he grabbed a cup before grabbing his cigarettes, heading for the balcony. They probably wouldn’t be able to talk on the phone for long, but he needed to wish Nicky a merry Christmas anyways.

It was cold as fuck outside still, though at least the sky was mostly clear. The air bit into his lungs with a vengeance as he settled in on the tiny patio chair, carefully setting his coffee down as he lit a cigarette. Might be too early to wake her up, but if Aiden was awake, he intended to pass the misery onto his sister. It would be good for her. Character building or whatever.

“I hate you so much,” she groaned after four rings.

“Merry Christmas, I love you,” Aiden told her smugly, huddling into the warm folds of Jordi’s robe. It still smelled like him, even though Aiden had been using it more recently, the scent of his soap mingling with that particular smell that was all _Jordi_. Like being wrapped in a hug, but less sappy.

“Merry Christmas, you’re getting coal in your stocking.” There was the sound of her rustling around and the distinctive click of blinds being lifted. “Oh thank god, you actually waited for the sun to come up.”

“I am nothing if not a considerate older brother. Mom still asleep?” Of course, if he kept smoking in this robe, it was going to end up smelling like his cigarettes and nothing else. Aiden made a private note to himself to wash it and hang it somewhere Jordi could reach it once he got back inside.

“Uh-huh. We’re going over to Aunt Mary Anne’s later. I guess it’s her turn to hold the family dinner or whatever. I dunno if Emily’s going to be there, but I guess I can hang out with George or something.” The doubt that crept into her voice was tinged with something like baffled wonder.

To be entirely honest with himself, which wasn’t something Aiden made a habit of doing, he was still caught up in that strange feeling of wonder too. It was weird, knowing one of the cousins might actually have his back. Good for Nicky, because he worried about her _constantly_ , but also strange and uncanny. Like he’d entered a mirror world or something.

Dare he say _queer_ , even. Aiden felt his lips tug into a wry grin and curled his legs up tight to his chest as he sipped at his coffee. “Sounds fun, and by fun, I mean I bet you’re going to be babysitting again.”

“ _Ughhh_.” Nicky went quiet for a few seconds, then said soft enough that static washed over her words, “I wish you could be there. For real. It’s not fair for you to be alone on Christmas.”

It would be easy to agree with her and let that line of conversation die there. Ask her about the books she wanted to get for the holiday, if she’d noticed the money he’d put in her account. Deflect and agree with her assessment, because the only time he’d ever come close to telling her about his dating life had been while he was too drunk to think straight and sneering at the idea of liking Jordi at all. Technically, it hadn’t even been a month yet. Something too fragile and too delicate for him to break by telling her and making it real.

But he could see Jordi through the windows that looked over the balcony, wearing nothing but an apron as he flipped pancakes, occasionally bouncing on one foot to the beat of a song only he could hear. Maybe it was too soon to tell her when he’d never told her about Damien either, knowing on some level that he didn’t want his boyfriend then anywhere _near_ his sister. He liked Jordi, though. With the confused irritation of a person who’d never expected to, he _liked_ Jordi.

“Actually,” he said carefully, watching Jordi flip another pancake onto the stack and then step back from the flat griddle and reach for his phone, “I’m seeing someone right now. So I’m going to be hanging around his place for Christmas.”

“Wait, really? Who is it?” She went from wistful to excited in a heartbeat, voice lifting.

“Uh, his name’s Jordi. He was in a couple of my classes this semester, and we sort of hit it off?” There was no way in hell he was telling his _baby sister_ that he’d blown the guy before ever learning his name. Though he might have to run interference on Jordi for that whenever they met. Given the way he and Clara had smirked over it at the party, Aiden had a sneaking suspicion that was going to be Jordi’s favorite way to say they’d met.

“Was he the ‘asshole’ you didn’t want us to call? The one you’re not friends with?” Nicky said the last with smug sarcasm, clearly enjoying having something she could fight back with since he’d woken her up so early. Aiden grimaced.

“Yeah, okay, he was but—well, he’s not that much of an asshole. He’s making me pancakes right now, so…” That was not quite the truth anymore. Though he couldn’t hear anything, he could see Jordi pacing furiously back and forth in the kitchen, lips curled in a snarl as he snapped something into the phone.

“Ugh, _lucky_. I don’t even know if we have pancakes in the house. Maybe I can make cinnamon rolls or something. Since you _woke_ me _up_ at this stupid hour of the morning.” She heaved a sigh, deliberately blowing it into receiver so all he heard was static, then said, “I’m gonna get off the phone before Mom wakes up and asks who I’m talking to. I love you, Aiden.”

Normally he’d try and wheedle her into spending more time on the phone with him, even if they had nothing to talk about but there was something about the way Jordi was moving in there— “Love you too, Nicky. Try and have fun today, okay?”

“Only under punishment of _death_ ,” she said before hanging up.

Freed from the phone now, he smoked his cigarette down as fast as he could, stubbing it out before grabbing his coffee again. If Jordi asked, it would be because the weather was too much for Aiden to linger. That he couldn’t really feel the cold digging its claws into his joints was a nonissue.

“— _not_ coming back home, I don’t care what you say. There’s nothing in the trust that says I have to come back for whatever goddamn charity ball you’re throwing. I’ve _done_ my part.” Jordi stopped, his knuckles white around the case of his phone, turned away from Aiden as he hissed at whoever was on the other side of the line. “Call it a fucking tantrum all you want, _mom_ , I’m not getting on the fucking plane.”

Ah. That kind of phone call.

Silently, Aiden shrugged out of the robe, setting it over the back of the couch. His cigarettes were left by the balcony door, coffee cup on the table in the living room next to his phone. He’d never stopped to think about Jordi’s home life, whatever it was, but he’d always assumed that it was vaguely positive. That maybe Jordi was the light of someone’s life the way his cousin John was the light of Aunt Molly’s. After all, he’d gone to _Princeton_ , and that had to mean something.

Just… maybe not something good.

Moving with the same ghost-light steps he’d learned to move with in his father’s house, Aiden walked into the kitchen, resting his palm on the hot curve of Jordi's spine. A tiny flinch cut over Jordi’s skin, but he didn’t say anything, only reached back with his free hand. His palm was hot and sweaty under Aiden’s, fingers curling too tight until their knuckles were grinding together.

“No, _you_ listen. I’m. Not. Coming. Home. It’s a really fucking simple sentence, I think you can manage it.” The rigid tension in his shoulders didn’t ease when Aiden hooked his chin over on of them, fitting his much more slender frame against the heavy muscle of Jordi’s. Weird, how he’d never really thought about the power in Jordi’s body until now, when it was taking so much of Jordi’s attention to keep that power restrained. “I finished school. I got the first chunk. I am more than fucking okay just bumming around on that for as long as I want to. You can’t _make_ me come back.”

It reminded him of his father, in a weird way. Not the anger—Jordi’s anger was a controlled burn, carefully contained with firebreaks and set charges, voice perfectly even despite the way he was raging into the phone. But the power behind it, the way that power balanced on a delicate fulcrum, ready to tip one way or another? That was an uncannily familiar sensation. His father had always tipped towards violence. It felt like Jordi tipped the opposite, turning the rage inside and letting it coil through him until he was taut enough to snap under the pressure.

Aiden pressed his cheek against the hard line of Jordi’s trapezius, remembered the scientific name for it with something close to disgust, then murmured low enough that it wouldn’t be picked up by the phone, “Do you need me to do anything?”

Underneath his cheek, he felt a tremor roll through Jordi. A second later, Jordi snapped, “Merry fucking Christmas to you too. Don’t call me again.”

If there was a reply, Jordi didn’t wait long enough to hear it. He hung up and tossed the phone across the counter, the hard case skidding over granite before toppling off the edge on the other side. Neither of them moved, Jordi’s chest heaving like he’d been running a race, his heart a vicious tempo where Aiden could feel it beating under his sternum.

For lack of anything better to do, Aiden breathed in as deep and even as he could, trying to coax that tempo into slowing. His arms slid around Jordi’s waist, fingers still tangled as he pulled Jordi’s hands with him. He wasn’t sure how long they’d be stuck standing like that, but he could do it for as long as it took. At least he didn’t have to worry about falling with Jordi acting as a rigid pillar of anger in the middle of the kitchen.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jordi said eventually, voice still as tight as his muscles.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Aiden told him, dragging his thumb over Jordi’s knuckles and ignoring the way the grip around his hand was beginning to send nasty shocks of pain up his left arm. “We can just eat pancakes and then watch the Hallmark channel all day.”

He could feel the way Jordi’s breath shook in his chest, the way it hitched over a lump in his throat when he inhaled. “You hate the Hallmark channel.”

“Yeah, but I _love_ pancakes. So it’s a pretty even trade for me.” Aiden pressed a careful, gentle kiss against Jordi’s neck, felt the way he swallowed hard to try and avoid crying. He’d been there. He knew what it was like.

After a long moment, Jordi nodded. He didn’t make any moves to shrug Aiden off though, standing there in the kitchen and swaying back into the hug around his waist. That was fine.

That was just fine.


	19. INTERMISSION III: Jordi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > It's so polite, it's so polite  
> It's offensive, it's offensive  
> It's so unright, it's so unright  
> It's a technical, accept it
>> 
>> But who needs love when there's law and order  
> And who needs love when there's Southern Comfort  
> And who needs love at all
> 
> — "Leeds United", Amanda Palmer

It went something like this:

“Jordi, you can’t keep being lazy like this,” his mother said, her lovely face soft and sad. She was a beautiful woman, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, her skin porcelain white and her eyes large and dark. She said it in English, because she said _everything_ in English, until her accent was nonexistent and well-trained away.

Once upon a time, his halmeoni had told him that it was important for him to remember his heritage, that it was important for him to take a little bit of Korea back with him to the states. It wasn’t enough for him to be a strange looking American, because he _wasn’t_ —he was more than that. He was her grandson, and her grandson would know Korean if it was the last thing she ever did, no matter how much of their little time together she spent teaching him.

His mother, though. His mother left Korea behind in a heartbeat, embracing her husband’s lifestyle and culture as swiftly as she could, with all the grace and aplomb of a trained actress. Neither of them would tell him how they’d met, but Jordi wasn’t stupid; his mother had been a nobody just like his father, and then his uncle had died and suddenly, they were _somebodies_. Somebodies didn’t get to have Korean girlfriends and Korean bastards. Somebodies didn’t get married for the BAH after enlisting for lack of anything better to do after college. Somebodies weren’t allowed to be mediocre. Somebodies weren’t allowed to be _failures_.

“I _am_ trying,” Jordi told his mother, ten years old and too earnest for his own good. He was a somebody now too, and being a somebody meant paying attention to all the very important things that went into carrying the wealth and power his family brought him.

His mother sighed over his obstinance, gently tucking the strands of hair at his brow back into place. Her nails were neatly manicured, her skin smooth and soft everywhere it peeked out from under the fashionable clothing she wore. She was so incredibly perfect, thin and slight and small, that Jordi always felt awkward and ill-sized next to her. He was already almost eye height with her, and that filled him with a discomfort that went beyond words.

“You are not,” she said, disappointment heavy in her sweet, perfectly American accent. “If you were, you would be getting perfect grades, Jordi. You’re so clever, I know you can do it if you just _try_.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” he said again, like he’d been saying for the last twenty minutes. It wasn’t his fault that the history teacher didn’t like him, that his essays were somehow never quite good enough even when Jordi cited more sources and used better grammar than the rest of his (white) classmates. It wasn’t his fault that the man resented him for being “Chinese” no matter how many times Jordi had tried to correct him on that.

But his mother wouldn’t accept that as an answer. If there was adversity, he was supposed to overcome it. What had he done to properly affect his situation?

Nothing, according to her. Nothing at all.

“I’ll have to tell your father about this.” It wasn’t a threat so much as it was a resigned sigh of defeat. Neither of them wanted to tell his father about this, Jordi least of all. His father wouldn’t understand any more than his mother did, and worse, his father would be annoyed that Jordi was tarnishing all the good work he’d put into lifting this branch of the family up.

He could feel tears welling up in his eyes, but crying achieved nothing. Weak little boys cried, but men—men, like Jordi was becoming, like Jordi was supposed to be—men didn’t cry. His father wasn’t a soft weak thing like Jordi, who was pudgy and sickly and clumsy with youth. If he ever wanted to make his father proud, it would have to be like this: forcing the tears down and refusing to ever let that sort of weakness show.

“You can’t wait until after my birthday?” he asked, knowing it was futile.

“No, Jordi,” his mother said, sad and unrelenting. “You father will hear about it now. If he decides to cancel your party, it will be a very good lesson.”

She left, the essay with an A- on it carried out with her.

* * *

It went something like this:

Johnny was actually Jonathan Carmichael III, but everyone knew that calling him that was a quick way to end up on his shitlist. Since Johnny-boy’s shitlist frequently included property destruction that was later whisked away by his tolerant parents (Jordi hesitated to call any parents that named their kid _Jonathan Carmichael III_ loving), it was a good idea to stay off of it. Jordi had achieved that over the years by just doing the fucking idiot’s homework for him, practicing his writing and diction in a half-dozen different dialects to make sure it was never too close to his own formal method of writing.

It meant that Johnny trusted him, and it meant that when Jordi called him at three in the morning, Johnny picked up.

“I’m in,” Jordi told him, holding the itinerary for his parent’s global travels in one tightly clenched fist. They were leaving without him. Again. Because his grades and after-school efforts had not been enough. Again. Despite the fact that he was the head of the Debate Club, despite the fact that he’d been a member of the student government from his very first year, despite the fact that he was the head of his class with a perfect grade-point average and had glowing personal letters written about him from his teachers. He played lacrosse. He went to judo classes on the weekends. He could speak four languages and was practically guaranteed a spot in any Ivy League school of his choice when he graduated. He’d started tutoring people and learning a second instrument, just to make them happy. 

They would _never_ be fucking happy. 

So, two weeks past his eighteenth birthday, it was time for him to start making some happiness for himself.

“No shit, really?” Johnny said, drunken glee heavy in his voice. “Well, shit man, the party’s already going. Come on, I’ll hold up a spot for you. You got the address?”

“I’ve got the address.” He set the itinerary down, turning on one heel and striding out of the room. The one concession he’d made to anonymity had been removing his distinctive school blazer and tie, replacing them with a sharp black sport jacket instead. While he had no intention of being recognized _yet_ , that did not mean he intended to stay anonymous forever.

Jordi wasn’t just smart. He was a fucking genius, by most measures of the word. And he knew it—he’d known it from a very young age, buoyed up by the praise of his private tutors and professors at school. Everything anyone else his age could do? Jordi could do better, faster, with more precision.

As his mother used to say, all he had to do was _apply_ himself. And if he just _tried_ , he could practically rule the world.

Well, ruling the fucking world wouldn’t get him laid, and it wouldn’t make him stop being the studious nerd with no friends. Fuck that. If his parents weren’t ever going to unbend enough to see him as a _person_ instead of as the conglomeration of all their plans for the future, then he was going to break them in fucking half with all their expectations. Better them than him. It was pure, animal survival instinct rearing to the fore.

Their family owned three cars, because they had private drivers and his father thought more than that was excessive. The other members of the family splurged a little more, but the children of politicians and bankers were apparently allowed to be _people_ as well as little vessels for their parents’ dreams, so Jordi assumed the splurging had something to do with that. It was just one more thing to resent his family for.

He picked the most expensive one, because if he wrecked it with his barely used drivers licence it would hurt the most.

The party was being held at the family vacation home of one of Johnny’s friends, models and a few B-lister actors around the same age crowding in the cavernous rooms of the mansion. Jordi parked the Lamborghini on the curb with the rest of the absurdly overpriced performance cars, tossing his keys in the air before pointedly ‘forgetting’ to lock it. There were drunk adults laughing on the frost-covered lawn, in the halls, hanging all over each other and the rest of the graduating year of his private school, the barely-legals and the not-legal-at-alls.

He got a drink at the catered bar, then swung upstairs towards the master suite, which is where Johnny was bound to be. True enough, Jonathan Carmichael III was holding court in there, his shirt mostly unbuttoned and a model’s hand down his pants. The other stupid, drunken idiots in his little friend group were piled around him, causing property destruction and being general menaces to the rest of society.

“Yo, Jordi!” Johnny called, lifting his bottle of vodka and then laughing when the model took a chance to drink straight from the lip of it. “Fuck man, you never come to these. Could mistake you for a fucking charity student. Decided to loosen up finally?”

A sharp, thin smile slashed its way over Jordi’s face, the first real one he’d made in years. He stole the bottle of vodka, then dragged his hand over the model’s ass while she squealed and Johnny laughed.

“You know, Johnny, I think I’ve just figured out what I really want in life.”

* * *

It went something like this:

He dragged his tongue over her clit, the nub of it hot and slick under his mouth. Her thighs trembled around his head, fingers buried in his hair as she pushed his face deeper between her legs. One palm stretched over the smattering of freckles on her hips while the other fucked three fingers into her eager cunt.

Amanda’s voice lifted, high and desperate as she keened and shook under his hands. It was the fourth time he’d made her come and he never got tired of the way she sobbed his name, the way her legs tightened around his head and she rocked against his mouth in faint desperation. He’d heard men his age talk shit about eating a girl out, but Jordi didn’t get it—there wasn’t anything better in the world than having his girlfriend fall to pieces under his hands.

“Oh fuck, baby, I need you inside me,” she moaned, her hands tugging at his hair and trying to encourage him up. His knees had gone numb about thirty minutes ago, but a hand braced against the edge of the mattress was enough to help make up for that when he stood.

“You want something?” he purred against the soft, pale skin of her throat, his teeth and tongue pulling bruises to the surface as he felt around for the condom he’d left on the bed.

“God, Jordi, baby, come on,” Amanda pleaded, one hand untangling from his hair to drag over the muscles in his chest. He’d given up lacrosse once he was in school and picked up a tae kwon do class instead, just to have something to do with his body when the restless energy got too high and his girlfriend wasn’t around for him to work it out with her. Lucky him, she’d had the entire day open this time.

He rolled the condom on, unable to help a little groan of his own as his dick throbbed under his palm. Underneath him, Amanda spread her legs, the freckles on her shoulders disappearing into the desperate flush taking over her skin.

“Well, if you insist,” he said, teeth catching her earlobe carefully as he sunk himself into the hot, tight embrace of her body. She opened for him like she was made for it—or, maybe, like he’d spent the last two hours deliberately edging her until she was so horny for him that she’d be able to take fucking _anything_. Her perfectly manicured nails dug into the meat of his shoulders when he rolled his hips in a sharp thrust and he let out a lusty laugh at the way her voice broke on his name.

She fell to pieces underneath him and he relished it, the way her dark hair spilled over the sheets and her pale skin went red under the loving drag of his palms. When she came a fifth time, he finally let himself follow her, burying his face in her shoulder and groaning as his hips jerked.

Afterwards, when they’d both showered and he’d tossed the condom, she draped herself across his chest and lit a joint, offering him a pull before saying, “I think we should break up.”

“Ouch,” Jordi replied, tugging the pillow more firmly under his head and stretching his toes out until something in his lower back popped. “Do I get, like, a reason, or was it because I didn’t fuck you the first two times you asked today?”

“ _That_ is why.” Amanda rapped her nail against his chest, the blunt point on it leaving little red divots in his skin. The look on her face was pitying more than it was angry, and he really did not have a fucking clue what she was talking about.

“Mm. You’re gonna have to elaborate a little bit, sweetcheeks. I’m not a fancy psych major like you, I can’t see into the hearts of men—women, I guess, in this instance. Is it sexist to say ‘hearts of men’ like that?” He smoothed his palm over the soft curve of her ass and smirked when she rolled her eyes and sat up.

“You don’t actually give a shit,” Amanda told him, inhaling a lungful of smoke before sighing it out over his face. “About me, about this, about school—you’re going to be fucking valedictorian, Jordi, and you can’t even bring yourself to care once the cameras are off and no one’s paying attention. Do you even realize how crazy that is? There are so many fucking people that want it more than you do but you… what, why are we here, Jordi?”

“Uh, it’s a stipulation in my inheritance,” he said, reaching up for the joint. She held it out of reach for a second before giving in.

“And me? Am I a stipulation in your inheritance?” She rolled her eyes, shifted to straddle his stomach. Her breasts hung down over him, full and heavy, the right slightly larger than the left—he’d never told her, but he loved that about her. Loved being able to roll over in the night and tell by feel exactly which one he was getting a handful of.

“So you’re breaking up with me because I’m valedictorian and I don’t deserve it.” He gave in to temptation and reached up to palm one of her breasts, thumb dragging over the rosy bud of a nipple.

“I’m not breaking up with you because you don’t deserve it—you put in so much time and effort, Jordi, it’s incredible. You _do_ deserve it, is the problem.” She tapped his chest again, took a long drag off the joint and rolled her hips. “You just don’t care about it. You’re like… a shallow pond of water, reflecting whatever people want out of you. You’ve got no fucking personality, is what I’m saying.”

“Ouch,” he said again, mildly.

“You don’t even care when I’m calling you out on your shit here. I asked you out because the sex was really fucking good and I thought you were a goddamn catch—well-adjusted, rich, actually capable of giving me an orgasm, all of that. Turns out, you’re only two out of three, and that first one? It’s kind of important to me.”

“Well, I’m not going to stop you,” Jordi said, smoothing his hand down her side until his palm was resting on that cluster of freckles again.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” She sighed and looked away for a couple seconds. Then something hard entered her face, her hair falling around him like curtains as she leaned over him with intent. “Tell me, Jordi: have you ever done something for yourself, just because you wanted to? Something more than sex. Something more than a momentary piece of hedonism. Something _real_.”

Her eyes were like black pools swallowing him up, their normal rich chocolate color lost in the shadow of her hair. He licked his lips and thought about bullshitting, but what came out of his mouth instead was, “After I graduate, I’m changing my name.”

Amanda’s head tipped, eyes narrowing. “Yeah? What to?”

“Jordi Chin.” His thumb smoothed over the curve of her hip. “My mom’s name, before she got married, was Soo-Young Jin. Now, that’s the modern romanization of the Hangul character used—before, it was romanized under a different system as Chin, even though that wasn’t totally accurate. Too Chinese, not enough Korean. So it’s like… on one part, embracing who my mom was, but another part telling her to fuck off because she didn’t want me to have that name so I’m taking a variation on it she can’t lay claim to.”

“And nothing for your dad?” She leaned back, shoving the joint between her lips before flipping the heavy weight of her hair back over her shoulders. He really fucking loved her hair too, the way it waved and curled when the humidity was high, the way he could wrap it around his fist and make her back curve when he fucked her. “Okay. I can work with that.”

“I’m thinking of going low contact for a while too,” he said, closing his eyes and settling more comfortably against his pillow. “Moving out of the area. I’m pretty fucking sick of New Jersey. Just fucking around for a while. I figure, I have a different name, I can have an excuse not to transfer my school records, maybe pick up a degree in some shit-for-nothing little two year college.”

“And when you’re done fucking around?” she asked, her nail resting like a knife above his sternum.

He didn’t answer, and eventually she climbed off of him and got dressed to leave. She didn’t come back for a goodbye kiss, and he didn’t get up to give her one either. Three months was a pretty good record for him, come to think of it—he was good at sniffing out gold diggers, so all the girls he’d dated had broken up with him for about the same reason. Amanda was the only one to stick it out for over a month, and he suspected it had something to do with her field of study.

Maybe she’d write a paper about disaffected rich kids. Jordi felt himself grinning at the thought, the idea of her painting this weird little picture of him as a sad kid with a sad family instead of the absolute fucking beast he was now.

Maybe he’d write a screenplay about that. Movies could be fun.

* * *

It went something like this:

The hot, sexually aggressive guy from his class shoved him back against the couch before Jordi could even suggest taking a break from studying. Poor guy was fucking hopeless when it came to remembering basic facts about the human body—Jordi knew it wasn’t fair to compare them when he’d technically been through school once already, but damn. He’d read the tension in Aiden’s spine about thirty seconds before the guy was climbing in his lap, shoving those long, calloused fingers of his into Jordi’s hair and dragging his head back for a kiss.

Jordi’s hands worked their way under Aiden’s shirt, smoothed over the velvety soft skin over the lean muscle in his back, fingers dipping into the divot of Aiden’s spine. They’d been fucking for three weeks now, and if he was lucky, he might get to _keep_ fucking the guy all the way to the end of the semester.

Fucking guys. Imagine if his parents could see him now.

Jordi couldn’t help the smug little smile that stretched over his lips, his hands sliding into tight denim of Aiden’s jeans to squeeze the swell of his ass. He didn’t anticipate the way Aiden’s kiss suddenly turned mean, the way he bit Jordi’s lip hard enough to draw blood and then shoved his tongue so deep in Jordi’s mouth that he couldn’t taste anything except blood and _Aiden_.

“Wh—fuck,” he sputtered when Aiden finally pulled away.

“You weren’t thinking about me,” Aiden said, flushed and triumphant. His green eyes glittered with something more coldly arrogant than any of the rich fucks Jordi had met in his life, like he knew he would always hold the upper hand over everyone else, like he had taken Jordi’s offhand comments about slumming it and turned them into knives to throw right back at him.

“I’m paying attention now,” Jordi said, dazed and a little shocked by it. “You _bit_ me.”

“I’ll do a lot worse than bite if you start thinking about someone else when I’m in your lap again,” Aiden said, eyes crinkling at the corners as he smirked. His low voice was dry as it always was, the deep bass of it roughed by the cigarettes Jordi could always smell on his clothes.

“Sir, yes sir.” And that made Aiden’s smirk turn into something a hell of a lot more hungry, made him lean in and drag Jordi’s attention entirely onto _him_. Like the whole world revolved around him, like he was the most important motherfucker in the room, like he knew Jordi didn’t give a shit about anything so he was _forcing_ Jordi to give a shit about _him_. 

Oh fuck. His breath stuttered as Aiden’s hands popped the buttons of his shirt and yanked it open, turned into a ragged gasp when Aiden’s teeth caught his lip again. Jordi’s own hands were kneading into the meat of Aiden’s ass, encouraging and desperate all at once, and he was—

He was _feeling_ something.

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's excessive typographical errors/grammar mistakes, that's all on me. I'm a lil too drunk to be uploading but I've wanted to get this chapter out for a while, so... New semester! New semester problems.

He woke up and his entire body _throbbed_ with pain, a tooth-grinding ache that started at his ankles and chewed its way through his hips and spine before finally cracking through his shoulders and wrists. His fingers were stiff and when he tried to roll onto his side, his bones cracked with a series of pops that were audible outside of his own head.

The furnace beside him grunted and rolled too, wrapping hot muscle around the stiff curve of Aiden’s back.

With slow, shallow breaths, Aiden finally worked up the courage to open his eyes. Somehow he’d expected a bloody, pulpy mass to replace the rest of him—like when his arm had been broken, and then broken again, and then broken a third time because writing with his left hand was writing with the Devil and his father would _not_ stand for that. But it wasn’t. It was just his fingers, pale and spindly, curled in a stiff claw in the bedsheets. Nothing was even _swollen_.

Hissing softly, he fumbled his phone over from the bedside table and pulled up a weather app. The temperature was below zero and a storm front was moving through, dumping snow and ice on the city. Low pressure. Fantastic. Fucking fantastic.

Jordi’s arm slid around his waist, his hot palm sliding up Aiden’s stomach before resting his fingers at the base of Aiden’s throat. They were a warm counterpoint to the cold, burning ache in his bones.

“Good morning,” Jordi murmured, tucking his nose and mouth against Aiden’s shoulder, lips trailing over the skin. “That storm outside means we’re all snowed in and shit. Pretty sexy, huh?”

It could be sexy, except Aiden felt like so many pieces of rusted rebar welded together with corrupted flux.

“Remember that when I yelled at you for treating me like I was made of glass and told you I’d rip your balls off if you did it again?” he asked, wishing he had a fucking cigarette just to take the edge off.

The hand on his chest paused, Jordi’s mouth hesitating. “Hey, what? Are you okay?”

“No. I’m really not. I’m really fucking not, Jordi. I… hurt.” Aiden shut his eyes tight, feeling the ache in his jaw and the agony rippling through his ribs with every breath. “It’s not worth going to the hospital for, but I’m not going to be good for anything while this storm’s around.”

There was silence, and then Jordi shifted, bracing his weight on one arm as he half curled over Aiden’s body. “What do you need me to do?”

“I don’t know.” He breathed in slow, eyes still shut tight. If he kept his breathing even, it helped gut the urge to just start screaming and never stop.

“Okay.” Jordi pressed a slow, gentle kiss to Aiden’s temple, then carefully climbed off the bed. It didn’t jostle much, but even the little amount it did made Aiden’s hip slide sickeningly in its socket. The loss of warmth was almost worse, because at least when Jordi’s hot body was wrapped around him, it was an effective way to draw the ache out of his bones.

He wasn’t sure what Jordi had planned either, since this wasn’t something that had come up before now. His bad days, his _really_ bad days, those were once in a blue moon… but almost always cropped up during winter, so maybe it _should_ have come up before now. Wrapping his joints was a hard no, not when the slightest pressure on them made him want to cry, but short of finding a sauna and curling up in one of those—

The rumble of water in the pipes finally penetrated the fog of misery wrapped around him, and Aiden opened his eyes again. The rest of the room was still dark, the storm eating up what little daylight tried to penetrate the curtains, and a strip of bright gold light from the bedroom cut across the floor. He squinted at that, wondering if Jordi was showering to go out, then slowly shifted his gaze up to the man in question when he came back into the bedroom.

“Is it just your joints, or does light hurt too?” Jordi asked, dropping into an easy crouch next to the bed. For once, Aiden didn’t have the energy to resent his easy athleticism in the mornings.

“Just my joints right now,” he said, shifting a hand up to wrap his arm around Jordi’s neck. It hurt, but since everything hurt right now, it was worth it to feel the heat of him again. “But too much light and motion like on a television or something—don’t think I can handle it right now. Processing power is going to the pain centers, my RAMs all full up.”

“I don’t know fucking anything about computers,” Jordi said sincerely, his eyebrows twitching up, and then he cupped Aiden’s cheek and pressed another kiss to his head.

“I’m all out of humanities-accessible metaphors.” Aiden let his eyes slide shut again, basking in the heat on his jaw, under his hand, the way it helped soothe the grinding of bone against bone. Maybe he should invest in a heated blanket.

“Well, rude. Can you walk?” Jordi’s thumb slowly dragged over his cheekbone, his voice soft. It was a good question, even if it wasn’t one Aiden wanted to think about right now but—well, he was awake, and the longer he was awake and adjusting to the overbearing ache in his joints, the more willing he was to consider moving. Not much, not for long, but he _could_ do it if he had to.

“Yeah, I can walk. Just don’t expect me to go outside.” He sighed as Jordi kissed his forehead again, then opened his eyes when Jordi pulled away and held his hands out for Aiden to use as grips.

Sitting up hurt, but laying down hurt too, so Aiden tried not to hate Jordi too much for it. He couldn’t stop himself from hissing in pain when his hip slid back into place, clenching his teeth tight before grabbing Jordi’s hands. The help wasn’t just useful, it was necessary; most of his weight ended up braced against Jordi, his legs screaming and trying to slip out of place if he put too much pressure on them. One of his knees kept trying to go backwards. _Fuck_ but this storm was doing a number on him.

“You’re sure you can walk?” Jordi asked, squeezing his hands gently. The jolt of pain it shot through Aiden’s knuckles was offset by the way Jordi’s hot palms worked to ease the tension in his paradoxically too stiff, too loose tendons.

“I can walk,” he said tightly, leaning even more of his weight forward. His shoulders might not be happy about it, but they could handle it more than his hips could right now.

Thankfully, Jordi didn’t argue. They made their slow way to the bathroom, the bathtub halfway full when Jordi helped him sit at the edge of it, and Aiden curled his fingers around the cool granite tile. The hard surface was a lot worse than the bed had been but—hell, when was the last time he’d taken a bath? When he was eight? Nine? Young enough that taking a bath with Nicky was perfectly normal, setting the older sibling to make sure the younger didn’t faceplant into the water and drown.

Maybe it would help. What the hell, he’d tried everything else. Short of having Jordi buy a bunch of heating pads and turn him into a parody of the Michelin Man, he didn’t have any more options.

Jordi turned the water off, squinting at the tub for a second before frowning at Aiden. “Do you care if I put something in the water?”

“Not really,” he said, trying to decide if it was worth it to ask Jordi to let him smoke inside. The nicotine would help, but not as much as it would kill him to step outside in subzero temperatures.

“Alright. Sit tight, I’m gonna grab you some coffee and like… toast or something. You should eat.” It took Jordi a second to find the thing he was looking for, some kind of green ball he dumped in the bath a second later, and then he stood up to leave.

“Can you uh,” Aiden cleared his throat, turning to squint at the water that was rapidly turning burgundy, “can you grab my smokes too? Just… one is fine.”

Jordi wavered, then sighed. “Yeah, I’ll grab you a cigarette. Ibuprofen or anything too?”

“If you’ve got the extra strength stuff, maybe. Otherwise it’s not worth the hassle.” He listened for the way Jordi made a noise of agreement, watching the swirls of red slowly dying the bathwater. There was some kind of perfume coming out of it as well, light enough that he wasn’t too bothered by it, and it wasn’t floral anyways. Fruity, maybe, but richly so.

Fuck, he’d forgotten his phone in the bedroom.

Swearing at himself, he slowly hauled himself upright and limped out there to grab it, using the walls and the furniture to keep his balance. Jordi caught him on the way back, setting a cup of coffee on the bathroom counter, his other hand hovering just behind Aiden’s back in case he fell. It was really fucking annoying, but since there was a cigarette and lighter on the counter too, he let himself be annoyed and then let it go.

Slowly, he stepped into the tub and let Jordi help him sit down without falling. The relief was almost instant, heat wrapping around his bones as he sank into the water; it was tempting to go all the way under, but he might not be able to come back up again if he did. For now, having the weight off his legs was enough. Having the cold slowly melt out of his joints was enough.

With a grunt, Jordi sat on the bathmat next to the tub, setting the coffee cup on the edge and lighting the cigarette before handing it over. “You know those smell disgusting, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Aiden said, smiling at him as he took it. God, but this was nice. He should’ve done this before now, _long_ before now. “You get used to it.”

“Doubt it,” Jordi muttered, propping his chin on his palm and taking a sip from the coffee. He looked tired, even though they’d just woken up, and Aiden wondered how bad _he_ must look for that to happen. For a second, he felt guilty.

Stupid. Stupid thing to think, because it wasn’t like he was doing this for fun, or for attention—hated it actually, hated looking weak and _hated_ having someone else fussing over him. But this was _nice_ , and the fact that Jordi was being nice twisted him up on the inside, because Aiden wasn’t sure he needed it. He’d toughed this out before, he could tough it out again.

With a sigh, he rested his cheek against the edge of the tub, reaching up to run his free hand through Jordi’s hair. Already his fingers felt softer, looser, not in the agonizing way that signaled joints pulled out of place, but in a way that they should. Flexible without dislocating, limber without the stiff weakness in his muscles as well.

This was helping more than toughing it out would. Instead of laying in bed miserable and trying not to cry, he was… still a little miserable, the throb of pain in his joints hovering ominously around the edges, but at least his eyes weren’t burning anymore. Maybe he couldn’t stay in the bath forever, but now he knew he ought to _try_.

“Hey,” he said softly, curving his hand around Jordi’s cheek and smoothing his thumb over the soft spot under his eye, “Thank you. I know I can be sensitive about this and—Thank you for trying anyways, you know?”

“I don’t think you understand how awful it is to watch you lay there in pain,” Jordi replied, tipping his head into Aiden’s palm and shutting his eyes. Stubble dragged against his soft skin, Jordi’s beard untrimmed still. “I couldn’t stop myself from helping even if I wanted to. I can’t just… I can’t just let you keep hurting without doing _something_ ”

Aiden remembered the fight they had a bare few weeks ago, when he’d first moved in, and took a slow drag on his cigarette before wetting his fingertips and twisting it out. He could chuck it in the garbage later. “I know. And—  Listen. This is good enough.”

He reached forward, curling his fingers around Jordi’s jaw and pulling him close. Jordi let himself be dragged forward, tasted of coffee and whiskey (had he spiked the coffee?) and signed into the kiss. “It’s not. But if you’re fine with it…”

“I’ll take this,” Aiden whispered against his lips, something warm and tight diffusing through his chest as he thought about Jordi dancing around his issues in an attempt to take care of him without overriding his free will will. “I’ll take this any day. Thank you.”

* * *

Three days after New Year’s, when he and Jordi had gotten so drunk that they’d forgotten each other’s names while fucking on the couch, Aiden reached into his coat pocket for his keys on his way out of the condo. This jacket wasn’t one he wore often, mostly to school because it was serviceable in every situation, but there was a slip of paper in the pocket anyways. He puzzled over it on the way to the car before realizing the relevancy of the phone number.

Cr0w. Clara. _Shit_.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The good news: I now officially have a proper structure planned out for this thing, rather than a vague collection of story beats I wanted to hit in a vague, ill-defined order. Yay! It... will hopefully not be as long as I think it might be, but I'm not promising anything, because it took me sixty thousand words to say what I though I should've done in thirty so...................
> 
> The bad news: I'm going into what is hopefully my last semester of school, so expect updates (here and elsewhere) to come much slower. I've got most of the next PPRR chapter written and it's really a matter of sitting my ass down and actually _editing_ Act II of SotL before I can put that up, but I'm not going to make any promises about when those will get posted. The plan is still to do Rough Seas during NaNoWriMo, so _hopefully_ that will be posted sometime in December but. Eh. We'll find out.

Clara hadn’t answered his text about her schedule by the time he got to his first class, which was frustrating. He should have given her the number when he’d first gotten it, he knew that, but finals stress had eaten his brain, and then things had gotten… complicated. Way too complicated. He didn’t want to risk forgetting it again, which meant handing it over as quickly as he could.

Of course, his life was a fucking joke, so Jordi was already seated at a desk and staring out the window when Aiden opened the classroom door. About half the class was already waiting with first-day jitters, but the seat _next_ to Jordi was empty. Aiden claimed it, thunking his bag down, then leaned against Jordi’s shoulder to see what he was looking at.

“You know, you’re lucky I’m a master of self-control, otherwise I might’ve thrown you,” Jordi said conversationally, not looking away from his view over the parking lot. There was a group of people vigorously debating something down there, and Aiden couldn’t tell if they were three seconds from fighting or just laughing it out. Could go either way.

“You’ve never seen me in a fight. Hard to throw someone who just keeps bending his way out of your grip.” He dug his chin into Jordi’s shoulder a little harder, feeling the way Jordi huffed out a laugh.

“Now there’s a fucking mental image. What are you, a spider monkey?” Finally breaking his gaze away from the parking lot, Jordi turned. The rude response Aiden was carefully constructing got lost when Jordi leaned in to kiss him, his lips soft and perfectly chaste. Aiden froze, startled, and then blinked when Jordi pulled away, stretching his arms into the air. “So, Intro to Psych?”

“I needed another social science elective,” Aiden said blankly. He’d initiated the touch, but he hadn’t expected Jordi to reciprocate in public so easily. It was one thing for them to show up at a party together, and something else entirely for Jordi to kiss him in a classroom full of their peers, with no care in the world.

He’d never—with Damien, they’d been affectionate in public, sure, but there’d been the underlying tension of the trouble Damien could get into if he got caught with his hand down Aiden’s pants. So this was a whole new avenue of social interaction, something he’d missed out on in high school and never hunted out in college. Was he supposed to expect that every time? Was _Jordi_ going to expect it every time? Aiden didn’t even know how many classes they shared; the most he knew was that Jordi got up stupid early the first four days of the week (something that Aiden was gleefully no longer required to do now that his anatomy class was behind him) and _he_ was taking evening classes for the most part.

Of course Jordi had that confident air at all times, so that was no fucking help. He was pulling out his notebook and a neatly organized agenda, their textbook already sitting on the corner of his desk. “Yeah, that’d do it. What, you didn’t want to do sociology instead?”

“I don’t even know what sociology is. You already stopped by the bookstore?” It was a new copy too, the hardcover shiny and unmarred by scuffs or scrapes. Aiden tried not to lust over it but—a new fucking book. Of course mister _Princeton graduate_ could afford a new fucking book. Aiden had to pirate most of his.

“Mm, yeah. Figured I’d beat the rush if I showed up early, and since I already had a nine-am…” Jordi shrugged, then glanced at Aiden notebook, flipped to a page halfway into it, already partly filled by previous classes. “You?”

“Nah, I wait until after the first class. I need to know which ones are actually required and which ones are just helpful suggestions.” Of course, since _Jordi_ had the book now… It wasn’t like Aiden was planning on breaking up with him any time soon, and they _were_ living together, so using Jordi’s book was just sensible. Good fiscal planning.

And he could use Jordi’s brain for all the hard bits that never made sense. They’d be studying together _anyways_.

“Huh. Not a bad idea. What time are you out of here tonight?” Jordi asked, pulling out his phone to check the time. There were two minutes left until class started, and the professor hadn’t shown up yet.

“Late.” Aiden grimaced at the reminder he’d be on the roads right as the drunks started to make an appearance. He’d done his best to make this semester’s schedule workable around his driving job, but it was his _last_ semester. There were only so many things he could do to fix it.

Their professor finally elected to show up, and Jordi shoved his phone away. “Just text me when you’re on your way out, then. I’ll have dinner waiting.”

What a strange thing to expect. Aiden nodded, then straightened in his seat to listen to whatever the syllabus had to say. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to expect a hot meal waiting once school was over. He guessed that he’d have a lot more new experiences before this year was up.

* * *

He got Clara’s return message once class was over and gave Jordi a quick goodbye kiss before heading towards the student lounge. She was already waiting with two coffees, settled in for the hour or so of break before their shared night class. Aiden thudded into the seat across from her, then dug out the number and handed it over.

“Aiden, I’m touched, but I don’t fuck married men,” she said, smiling at the face he made.

“I meant to give it to you before break but one thing happened after another and I forgot about it completely before now,” he said, sidestepping the joke entirely. “Sorry. She said her name was Cr0w, if you know anything about that.”

Clara’s smile turned into a small frown, thoughtful more than irritated. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in years. I wonder how she found me?”

“Don’t know about that, she just stopped me in the library during finals week and told me to give you her number. She said you’d know who she was.” And then, because Clara _had_ known and the curiosity ate at him, he asked, “How _do_ you know her?”

“We used to run in some of the same circles,” Clara said, folding the number up with precise, delicate motions. Her painted nails dragged over the folds, turning them into razor-sharp edges, until it was a tiny paper square. Then she tucked it into her pocket, her gaze gone distant.

He waited for her to say anything more, sipping at his coffee and relishing the warmth. For some ungodly reason, they only barely ran the heat in these buildings, and sometimes the chill made him ache when the freezing air outside started to eat at him. Hot coffee was the perfect medicine for that.

When nothing more was forthcoming, he leaned forward and folded his hands around the cup. “So. Those circles? Same as DedSec? Did she used to be a member? Were you in a gang in high school?”

That got him a soft snort and Clara’s eyes focused again. “No, nothing like that. Well—something like that. You know how Defalt and I were friends online for years before I moved south?”

“So it was an _internet_ gang,” Aiden said, trying to mimic Jordi’s smugly sarcastic tones. From the way Clara laughed again and rolled her eyes, he was decent enough at it.

“No! Not… _totally_ like that, at least. We weren’t a _gang_ , we were just a bunch of dumb kids, you know? We didn’t do anything special, we just did silly things—using exploits to turn the front pages of some businesses into redirects, emailing some worms out, nothing _special_.” She seemed to consider the possible ramifications of her actions, then shrugged ruefully. “Nothing we thought was special, at least. We were just… trying things. I heard she moved to game modding, and then she stopped coming online one day.”

“Well _that’s_ a boring origin story.” He nudged her leg under the table, smiled at her when she looked down and then up at him again.

Before he’d spilled the beans about Damien—before he’d gotten so panicked over what Jordi wanted, what Jordi was _offering_ —before she’d had to show up at his aunt’s house to pick his drunk ass up— _before_ all that, they’d kept it light. Their friendship was built on mutual interest in computers and mutual interest in the same gender, weekends drinking and days in class fighting with uncooperative code. But he’d changed things, a month ago, and if she was willing to let him, he might like to keep them changed too.

It had to be a two-way street though. He couldn’t assume she’d be around as an emotional punching bag for all his problems. That wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to _himself_. But if she was willing to let him in a little, when she didn’t let _anyone_ in much…

Clara sighed. “It was a mess, is what it was. We were teens, you know? Me, her, Defalt. Some of it’s Defalt’s to tell, so you’d have to ask him, but things were… a mess. A bad one. She and I dated for a bit when I was fifteen, and then we broke up in the IRC of a fantasy wolf roleplay forum, if you can imagine. And then she disappeared.”

“So it’s weird for her to show up now?” he asked, wondering if giving her the phone number really _was_ the right idea.

“It’s weird.” Clara’s eyes went distant again. “But maybe not unwelcome. I don’t know, Aiden. Maybe I’m tired of just hooking up with people. I’ll give her a call, see why she wanted to get in touch again.”

“Well, whatever you decide, I’m here for you. Just don’t ask me to play messenger, because I’m beginning to think I’m really bad at it.” He gave her a lopsided grin, flicking his fingers towards the pocket she’d tucked the number into.

She laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

* * *

The condo smelled like roasting meat and herbs when he opened the door, heavy and rich in the air. Aiden paused long enough to appreciate it, then shut the door and dumped his bag in the office next to his desk. The laptop could live in his bag for another night—his online class didn’t require a check in until Friday.

“Jordi?” he called as he pulled off his scarf and hung up his jacket, crouching down to untie his shoes and toe those off as well. There hadn’t been any snow on the ground, but a steady, frigid drizzle had soaked through the fabric anyways, leaving his ankles and toes aching from the cold. Putting them on tomorrow was going to be miserable.

He left his wet socks in the shoes for now, then ventured deeper into the condo when Jordi didn’t respond. The coupe had been in the parking garage, so it wasn’t like Jordi was _out_ —and anyways, it was nine at night, Jordi wouldn’t be anywhere but a bar around this time. Aiden liked to think that Jordi wouldn’t go drinking without him.

Still no response.

Jordi wasn’t in the kitchen, where a stew was quietly simmering in the crock pot, and he wasn’t in the bedroom when Aiden poked his head in to check. The bathroom was empty and dark, when meant a bath or something was out. It wasn’t until he turned to check the kitchen again—Nicky used to hide under the table, maybe Jordi was channeling his inner ten-year-old—that he spotted his boyfriend stretched out on the couch, arms folded over his chest and eyes shut. His phone blinked occasionally to show he had a message waiting, and Aiden bet it was his own text.

His steps were lighter as he made his way to the couch, leaning over Jordi’s sleeping body. The top couple of buttons on his shirt were undone, and he was still wearing socks, his feet crossed at the ankle where they were propped up on the arm of the couch. There wasn’t even a pillow under his head. He must have fallen asleep while waiting for the text. It was… cute.

Aiden reached down to touch Jordi’s cheek, watching the way his face scrunched up like a cat encountering a smell it didn’t like. _Really_ cute.

“Hey,” he said as Jordi’s dark eyes finally squinted open. “I texted, but I guess you didn’t hear the notification. Did you eat yet?”

“I was waiting—” Jordi interrupted himself with a jaw-cracking yawn, one hand covering his mouth a couple seconds too late. “—waiting for you to get home. I mean to put, like, one of those frozen bread loaves in the oven.”

“I’m fine with just stew.” Aiden couldn’t help smiling at the disgruntled look on Jordi’s face, a wave of affection welling up faster than he could temper. It was just that Jordi clearly had a _plan_ for dinner tonight, and now that it was disrupted, he looked like a kid that had been stuck with the least favorite controller during a multiplayer game. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or kiss the frown off Jordi’s face.

Kissing won out, Aiden’s hand cupping Jordi’s cheek more firmly as he sat up within reach. Jordi made a noise of faint surprise at the pressure of Aiden’s lips, but he kissed back readily enough, his mouth soft. And from there it was too easy to settle in Jordi’s lap, his legs bracketing Jordi’s hips as muscular arms curled around his waist. Jordi’s lips parted under his, Aiden’s breath coming out in an inaudible sigh as he tasted the hint of wine in Jordi’s mouth.

Eventually, Jordi pulled away, his warm hands smoothing down Aiden’s sides to rest on his thighs. “You’re gonna have to get off me if you want to eat.” 

“Think we can get back to this afterwards?” Aiden asked, reluctant to actually climb out of Jordi’s lap now that he was comfortable. It was cold outside, and Jordi’s body was always warm enough for Aiden to curl up against.

“I could be convinced,” Jordi said with a slow smile.


End file.
